Moses Moreland

The RosDavies website lists a Moses Moreland of Skeagh who was a farmer. He is mentioned in a Registry of Deeds document (probably a lease) in 1741 and who died around 1751. Will probated that year.

https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~rosdavies/genealogy/SURNAMES/M/Moreland.htm

Might be worth checking that Registry of Deeds document to see if there is any mention of Moses family. It looks to be a 3 lives lease and that can often refer back to ancestors and previous leases as well as to other family.

The PRONI copy is D509/52.

Lease of 91 acres I.P.M. for three lives - Rent: £10 p.a. plus fees of Rt Hon. Trevor, Viscount Hillsborough to Moses Moreland, Skeogh, Co. Down relating to Tullandony, Co. Down.

Also noted this 1739 lease D682/1:

Robt. Hawkins Magill, Gillhall, Co. Down to Moses Moreland, Skeoge, Co. Down. Lease of 24ac.1rd.11 per. (Formerly in possession of Wm. Doak) for term of lives (renewable for ever) of Abigail Moreland, aged 11 years, dau. of Moses Moreland, Joseph Black aged 17, son of John Black, Lurganbane, Co. Down and Jas. Black, aged 8, son of Jas. Black, Tullinisky, Co. Down. @ rent of £2/15/8 p.a. - x Annexed a renewal by Sir John & Lady Theodora Meade to Isaac Moreland (son of Moses, deceased) for lives of Cath Moreland (orse Brush), Jas. Moreland, son of Isaac, Hannah Moreland wife of Isaac, aged 46. Skeoge, Co. Down.

PRONI has numerous other documents relating to more than one Moses Moreland of that townland. (Check their e-catalogue).

Bear in mind that the Moreland family may not have lived in that area for terribly long before 1700. There are no Morelands listed in Co Down in the 1630 Muster Rolls, so they almost certainly arrived after that. MacLysaght’s “The Surnames of Ireland” says Moreland “is an English name of obvious derivation (dweller on the moorland).”  So your ancestors probably arrived from England, or perhaps Scotland, some time after 1630.

No church of any denomination in Dromore parish has any records as far back as 1700 so tracing Moses’ parents may prove challenging unless documents in PRONI or the Registry of Deeds throw up a clue or two.