My 64 ~ Researching My Fourth Great Grandparents : John McCain and Jane Allison

My fourth great grandfather, John McCain, was born in Drumboe, Stranorlar Parish, County Donegal, Ireland, in about 1760. He is known to have had three brothers and a sister, although hardly anything is known about his parents.

My fourth great grandmother, Jane Allison, was born in about 1775, also in County Donegal.

John and Jane married in about 1798, in County Donegal. Five known children were born to the couple:

John, b. abt. 1800

William, b. 1802

James, b. abt. 1806

Andrew, b. 1807*

and

Jane, b. 1816

*my 3rd great grandfather

According to Hutchison:

"John and his family were farmers at Meenhoney, a hilly, bog-filled region about one mile northwest of Castlefin, Co. Donegal, bordering on Northern Ireland. It was one of the few Protestant counties in Ireland and also one of the poorest, as was typical if the northwestern region of Ireland."

Meenahoney Townland, County Donegal, Ireland

Old Building at Meenhoney

It wasn't until sons William, James, and Andrew emigrated to New Brunswick, Canada, in the 1820s and 1830s, that the foundation of the McCain Family business enterprise was established. Brothers Andrew and James first arrived in Carleton County, New Brunswick, by the spring of 1823. All of the McCains obtained 100-acre land grants in the Florenceville area, where the "rolling hills, lush green valley, and meandering river" must have reminded them of their homeland in Meenahoney.

The industrious McCains began trading farm produce, and cultivated, in later generations, a huge Irish tradition ~ potato farming. The advent of large-scale potato farming, beginning in the 1920s, positioned the McCain families of Florenceville, New Brunswick, for the prosperous industry for which it is known to this day. 

Brothers Harrison, Wallace, Andrew, and Robert McCain, founders of McCain Foods Limited, are all second cousins, twice removed.

In the meantime, my fourth great grandparents, John and Jane McCain, both died around 1816 in County Donegal, Ireland, and their graves are unmarked and unknown.

Photo Credit:

Kenneth Allen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMeenahoney_Townland_-_geograph.org.uk_-_993408.jpg)

Kenneth Allen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AOld_building_at_Meenahoney_-_geograph.org.uk_-_993406.jpg)

Sources:

Hutchison, Brian W. Descendants of John McCain from Stranorlar Parish, Co. Donegal, Ireland: Migrations to British North America and throughout Ireland, (c. 1760-2004). Nanaimo, BC: GEN-FIND Research Associates, 2005. 

"McCain Foods," (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCain_Foods)

Fearless Females Blog Post: March 13 ~ She Buried A Child At Sea

I only have a couple of family lines that can be traced “across the pond” so far. My Smith lineage is fairly well documented back to Nathaniel Smith and Elizabeth Duck, who came from Yorkshire, England, and settled in Nova Scotia.

I can’t even imagine sailing across the Atlantic in a brig the size of the Albion. But, three years earlier, in 1771, my Hamilton ancestors left Ireland behind, and my 5th great grandmother, Agnes “Nancy” Ferguson Hamilton lost a newborn baby during the voyage.

Accounts differ as to the birth of little Archibald Hamilton. One says mid-March, while the family’s arrival in Halifax also mentions March of the same year.

They sailed on the aptly named brig “The Hope,” Robert, Nancy, five children, Robert’s younger brother Hants and at least one nephew. And, somewhere during the arduous voyage, in a private corner of the ship, Nancy gave birth to her fourth son.

There is no account that I have yet discovered as to the cause of baby Archibald’s death. Whether illness, malnutrition due to the health of his mother, or accident, it must have been a very traumatic event for Nancy, the entire family, and the crew as well.

An account of a typical service for an infant burial at sea reads thusly:

'' A little child died last night and was buried today … the little body was sewn up in a bag, and laid on the grating of the main hatch, covered with a Union Jack. At 10 a.m. all hands were called up to attend the funeral. A few boards were laid from the ship's side to the long boat. The boatswain stood on the boards, the little body before him stretched on a piece of plank, still covered by the Union Jack. The boatswain had hold of the plank in one hand and the flag in the other. The doctor read the service over the body, and at the word of command the sailor pulled off the flag and tipped up the plank, and, amidst the tears of some and the sigh of many, the little thing was launched into the deep, and in a moment was lost to sight, and in ten minutes all things were going on as before.”

Source of quote: British Deaths At Sea.

Lisa Alzo of  The Accidental Genealogist blog is presenting her Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month series in honor of National Women’s History Month.