By the middle of the nineteenth century we can at last see the McCorkells of the north-west clearly, thanks mostly to civil registration: non-Catholic marriages from 1845, and all births, marriages and deaths from 1864. Before then we rely on scattered church records and land valuations that list only heads of household. The first complete surviving census is 1901, so the genealogies here start from that census and work back into the early nineteenth century, and in some cases into the eighteenth.
I have stopped at 1901, partly because later generations are easy for families to trace and partly out of respect for the privacy of the living. The branches are in no particular order, but I begin with my own. This is an ongoing page and I will add to it from time to time.
The McCorkells of Ballyrattan
- William McCorkell, Curraghnagarryc. 1750–1827
- Robert McCorkell m. Margaret1775–1857
- William McCorkell m. Sara (Nancy) Wray1807–1892
- Robert McCorkell m. Jane Williams1831–1906
- Lewis McCorkell m. Mary Ann McDonald1875–1936
Five generations farmed above Lough Foyle in the parish of Moville Upper, from the cess list of 1792 to the 1901 census and beyond.
Robert McCorkell, 1831–1906
In 1901 Robert McCorkell, a widower, was living with three of his sons on the family farm at Ballyrattan, transcribed in the census as "Ballyrotton". He is my great-great-grandfather. His son Lewis took over the farm on Robert's death in 1906.
Robert married Jane Williams on 2 February 1857 at the new Presbyterian church in Moville, by the Rev. A. Clements; the Londonderry Sentinel announced "Mr. Robert McCorkell, to Miss Jane Williams, Ballyratten". The marriage record names Robert's father as William McCorkell, farmer, of Ballyrattan. The Moville Presbyterian registers record the baptisms of their children: William (1858), Catherine (1860), James (1862), Francis (1865), Joseph (1868), Martha Jane (1871), Robert (1872) and Lewis (1875). Three emigrated in later years, two to Boston, Massachusetts and one to Vancouver, British Columbia, probably following earlier generations of the family.
William McCorkell, 1807–1892
Robert's marriage record names his father as William McCorkell. William was born about 1807; there is no baptism, since the Moville Presbyterian registers only begin in 1833, and his age comes from his civil death record. He died at Ballyrattan on 4 February 1892, aged 85, with his son Robert at his side.
William married Sara, known as Nancy, Wray about 1830. Robert, my great-great-grandfather, was born about 1831, before the Moville Presbyterian registers begin in 1833. The registers then record the baptisms of Margaret (1834), Nancy (1842), Mary (1844), Esther (1845) and Martha (1848), though there were probably more. Four of his daughters emigrated, all settling in Victoria, British Columbia; Margaret, born 1834, was the eldest. The proof is in a marriage at Victoria on 25 January 1873, when Martha McCorkell married William Harrison: the record names her parents as William and Ann McCorkell, Nancy being the familiar form of Ann. Her sister Esther stayed at home and married Thomas Baird at Moville in 1874. Another daughter, whose name I do not know, died in a tragic accident on the farm:
On Friday last, a girl, nine years of age, daughter to William M'Corkell, of Middletown, Ballyratten, near Moville, was gathering weeds as fodder for a cow. The child placed them in a creel, a custom common in the country, and had secured it by a strap across her shoulders. Having rested her burthen on a ditch, the creel, by some mischance, became overbalanced, and, the cord tightening round the neck of the little girl, she was unfortunately strangled.Northern Whig, July 1845, reprinted in the Ballyshannon Herald, 11 July 1845
In Griffith's Valuation of 1857 William farms 27 acres at Ballyrattan, spelt McCorkhill. A Margaret McCorkell is also listed there, living in the small clachan of Middletown. I believe she was William's mother.
Robert McCorkell, 1775–1857
Margaret's husband, I believe, was Robert McCorkell, recorded in the Tithe Applotment Book for Moville in 1828. He farmed in partnership with several others in the rundale fashion still common in Ireland in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
William McCorkell of Curraghnagarry, c. 1750–1827
I first suspected Robert's father was another William from the Flax Growers' Bounty list of 1796, where a William McCorkell appears for Moville Upper, the only McCorkell in the parish. The list goes no lower than the parish, so I needed more proof. It came a few years later with a cess list for Moville Upper dated 1792, in which William McCorkell appears in Curraghnagarry, a subdivision of Ballyrattan.
In the same year William served as churchwarden of the parish church of Moville, a position of some responsibility, and he signed the vestry minutes as "William Corkle". In the early 1800s he appears to have paid for his own pew there. That does not mean the family were Anglican. The vestry also handled civil business such as the county cess, and Presbyterians could serve on it; a historian at PRONI confirmed this to me, and all later members of the branch remained Presbyterian.
Before William
Beyond William I am speculating. No McCorkells appear in Ballyrattan before him, but a Robert McCorkell appears on a tithe list for Moville in 1774, in the same vestry book. He lived at Ballymacarthur, about four miles north of William, and was the only McCorkell in the parish. The naming pattern fits. I believe he is either the Robert McCorkell who appears at Ballymacarthur in the 1740 Protestant census, or more probably his son, since the Robert of 1740 must already have been an adult. The McCorkells of Ballymacarthur are probably my direct ancestors, and the name survives there today in McCorkells Road, Bóthar Mhic Thorcaill, near Greencastle (pictured in Chapter I). How and when the family reached Moville is discussed at the end of Chapter II.
This Robert may be the Robert McCorkle who married a Sarah McCorkell at St Columb's Cathedral in 1727; there is only one Robert in the 1740 census, so it seems a reasonable guess. If so, it shows a marriage between two McCorkell branches at an early date.
The McCorkells of Ballymacarthur and Greencastle
In the middle of the nineteenth century Ballymacarthur, near Greencastle, was still full of McCorkells. Griffith's Valuation of 1857 lists Archibald and John McCorkell there, with George at Carrowtransa and William at Balleeghan nearby, and the Moville Presbyterian registers show several families raising children in the townland:
| Parents | Children baptised |
|---|---|
| George McCorkell, farmer, of Ballymacarthur | Father of John, who married Isabella Baird in 1845 |
| George McCorkell and Anne Gamble | Sally (1841), Peggy (1842) |
| William McCorkell and Elizabeth Jane Smyth | Jane Ann (1846), William (1848), George (1849), John (1850), Thomas (1853), Joseph (1854) |
| John McCorkell and Isabella Baird | Robert (1850), James (1852), John (1854), William (1857), Ann (1859), Sarah (1862) |
| Archibald McCorkell and Sara Anne Burns, married 1858 | William (1858), Margaret (1860), Sarah (1863), Elizabeth (1865), Ann (1868), Archibald (1869), James (1873), Catherine (1875), John (1877), Herbert (1882) |
William McCorkell and Betty Smyth later lived at Greencastle. William was born about 1815; the couple are said to have had thirteen children, the youngest being James William McCorkell, born at Greencastle on 21 September 1859. William died there on 18 September 1895.
William of Greencastle and William of Ballyrattan, born in 1807, were near contemporaries living a short distance apart, and both families probably descend from the Robert McCorkell of Ballymacarthur recorded in 1740 and 1774. Whether they were cousins, or closer, is not yet known. William's death in 1895 falls within civil registration, so the death record would give his age and the informant, and the baptisms place his family firmly at Ballymacarthur.
The Shipping McCorkells
The second branch is the city family behind the McCorkell shipping line, whose beginnings are told in Chapter III. Three generations of the family can be traced in Londonderry, and portraits survive of two of them.
- William McCorkell, innkeeper of the Bogsidec. 1721–1795
- William McCorkell m. Jane Corscaden, 17991772–1836
- Bartholomew McCorkell m. Frances Browne1805–1887
William the founder kept an inn in the Bogside in the 1770s and died there in 1795. His son William took over the Londonderry Journal in 1796 and in 1797 became the first McCorkell freeman of the city. By 1799 he was a grand juror for the city and county of Londonderry. His wife, very probably Jane Corscaden, died at Moville in July 1833 aged 54, and William himself died at his house on the Strand in November 1836, aged 64. Their eldest daughter Margaret died at Castlerock in 1861.
Bartholomew was born in July 1805, the son of William McCorkell and Jane Corscaden, and was educated at Foyle College. He married Frances Browne, daughter of David Browne and Ann Kincaid, on 17 August 1843. He became a justice of the peace for County Donegal and for the city and county of Londonderry, Mayor of Londonderry, and in 1878 High Sheriff of County Londonderry. He died on 6 January 1887.
He and Frances had eight children: David Browne (1845–1897), Jane Augusta, Margaret Fitzgerald, William Foster, Annie Kincaid, Fannie Evelyn, Bartholomew Hubert (1852–1895) and Ada Langley. The Londonderry Sentinel records the birth of a son in October 1845 and of a daughter at the Strand in April 1848, and in December 1865 the death at Strand House of William Foster McCorkell, the second son, aged sixteen. The family later lived at Richmond, renamed Aberfoyle.
By the 1870s the family had become landowners as well as shipowners: Barry McCorkell of Londonderry, said locally to be of the shipping family, owned almost 1,000 acres in County Donegal.
The family album
Photographs of the family and their buildings survive in the collection assembled by a researcher into the McCorkell Line. Arthur McCorkell, Esq., was a solicitor of Shipquay Street and later the Strand. The Sentinel records his children's births in 1846, 1848, 1852 and 1857, the death at Portballintrae in 1849 of his daughter Annie Mary Hay, aged sixteen months, and at Moville in 1860 of his eldest daughter Jane Davida, aged six. His wife Jane died in Shipquay Street in 1857, and Arthur died at the Strand on 12 September 1863.
The city family was larger than one line of descent. Archibald McCorkell, Esq., also a solicitor, of Foyle Street and Glengallagh, died in 1854; a younger Archibald, town councillor, of Shipquay Street and Queen Street, had children born between 1856 and 1868. Thomas Moore McCorkell, Esq., of Baltimore, died in 1845 aged 27 at the house of George Foster on the Strand, "immediately after arriving in this City". Robert McCorkell, who died in 1857 aged 47, was manager of the printing department of the Derry Journal, the paper William the younger had once run. And in 1867 William, eldest son of "the late Captain McCorkell, of this City", died at St Louis. How all of these fit together is still to be worked out.
Some links are now clear. William the younger married Jane Corscaden at St Columb's in 1799, and Arthur the solicitor was baptised at First Derry Presbyterian Church in 1815 as their son, so he was Bartholomew's brother. Arthur married Jane Gilmour at First Derry in 1845. The younger Archibald married Elizabeth Chambers Magee at Warrenpoint in 1855; their sons included Ostram Moore McCorkell, born in 1867, who emigrated to Philadelphia in 1883, and Charles Alfred, born in 1868. In the next generation Bartholomew's sons David Browne and Bartholomew Herbert married Eveleen Pakenham (1882) and Harriet Hamilton (1894), and Annette Minnie McCorkell married James Corscaden in 1881, renewing the old family tie.
The full story of the shipping line and its ships will follow in a chapter of its own.
The McCorkells of Burt
Burt is where the McCorkell story in Ireland is densest: the Laggan Army muster of 1643 at Elagh, the kirk session baptisms of the 1670s, the 1740 census at Carrownamaddy, Speenoge and Mulleny. Farming families of the name were still there in the nineteenth century, in the townlands of Elaghbeg, Skeog and Dundrain.
| Year | Townland | Record |
|---|---|---|
| 1837 | Elaghbeg | Archibald, William and Samuel McCorkell in the tithe applotment. |
| 1837 | Skeog | John McCorkell in the tithe applotment. |
| 1837 | Dundrain | James McCorkell in the tithe applotment. |
| 1850 | Skeog | Mary Jane, youngest daughter of John McCorkell, Esq., of Skeagh, marries John A. Graham, saddler, of Coleraine, at the Second Presbyterian Church, Dunboe. |
| 1857 | Elaghbeg | Robert McCorkell holds 65 acres in Griffith's Valuation. |
| 1857 | Dundrain | James McCorkell holds 72 acres in Griffith's Valuation. His son Thomas marries Sarah Eliza McElveny at Fahan Presbyterian Church the same year; another son, James, remarries in 1885, and a daughter, Mary, marries Hugh MacMurtree in 1873. |
| 1858 | Carnamaddy | Mary McCorkell of "Carsamaddy" marries S. Robinson of Bonnemaine at Crossroads Presbyterian Church. |
| 1860s | Burt | Samuel McCorkell, prize-winning dairy farmer. |
An Archibald McCorkle paid hearth money at Elaghbeg in 1663, and an Archibald McCorkell is there again in the tithe of 1837. The same name on the same townland 174 years apart suggests a family that never moved. Lecky noticed the same thing in the Laggan in 1905: families of the old names still living on the old townlands.
Rev. Joseph MacCorkell
Joseph McCorkell (1857–1944) came from this Burt farming family. He was the son of John McCorkell and Mary Ann Fleming, and grandson of John McCorkell (1810–1873), who farmed 108 acres at Skeog in the tithe of 1838. His uncle Samuel (1842–1873) married Mary Jane Hanna, and his aunt Mary Jane (1847–1908) married Daniel Rankin; his own brothers and sisters included Martha Louisa (1866), Samuel James (1869) and Willamina Jane (1871). He entered the Presbyterian ministry and was for many years minister of Moville, where, by a strange twist, he baptised my grandfather in 1909 and my father in 1933, though he was not of our direct line. In later records he spelt his name MacCorkell. He had one daughter and no male descendants, and he is buried at Clar burying ground in Upper Moville, the same graveyard as my great-grandfather.
His photograph, and one of a Mrs McCorkell of Skeog, survive in the collection assembled on the shipping family. Families kept the likenesses of people they counted as kin, and I believe the Shipping McCorkells came originally from Burt. If so, the city merchants and the Burt farmers were cousins, and both lead back to the kirk session McCorkells of the 1670s.
The McCorkells of Loughgilly, County Armagh
Not every Ulster McCorkell descends from the Plantation settlers. This family came directly from Paisley in Renfrewshire in the early nineteenth century, more than two centuries after Andrew and John mustered at Portlough. Whether they shared a paternal ancestor with the Donegal families back in Scotland is not known.
- David McCorkle m. Janet Rogers, Low Church, Paisleym. 1790
- David McCorkle m. Mary Watts, Mountnorris, Co. Armaghb. 1791, m. 1817
David the younger was born in January 1791 and married Mary Watts, herself born in Scotland, at Mountnorris, County Armagh, in January 1817. He was a land steward, overseeing an estate from the townland of Drummilt in the parish of Loughgilly. Mary died between 1858 and 1860, and David some time after November 1860. The family seems to have moved between Scotland and Armagh: their son James Shields was born in Scotland in 1822, and Joseph was born in 1835, either in Paisley or in Armagh, as the records disagree.
The children
| Name | Born | What became of them |
|---|---|---|
| Leonard | 1821 | Stayed in Armagh; married; died early 1898. |
| James Shields | 1822 | Married Agnes Goudy at Loughgilly Church of Ireland. Emigrated to Philadelphia in July 1851, then homesteaded in Stanton Township, Goodhue County, Minnesota. Died 31 March 1860, buried on the homestead; a gravestone stands in Stanton cemetery. |
| Robert | 1830 | Emigrated to Philadelphia in 1851, then Scotch Grove, Jones County, Iowa, and Minnesota. Studied at Hamline University, Red Wing, and became a Methodist minister. In 1861 he asked to be released from his first posting at the Traverse des Sioux mission, St Peter, Minnesota; his later life is unknown. |
| Mary | — | Stayed at Loughgilly; died 22 November 1857. |
| Joseph | 1835 | Emigrated about 1853; settled in Minnesota and Iowa. Died at Akron, Iowa, 1909. |
Joseph McCorkell of Akron, Iowa, 1835–1909
Joseph followed his brother James to Philadelphia in about September 1853, aged eighteen. In 1854 the brothers moved west to join Robert in Goodhue County, Minnesota, where they were the second settlers in Stanton Township. Joseph declared his intention to become a citizen in 1856 and soon moved to Iowa, leaving his claim to James and Agnes.
A carpenter, contractor and builder by trade, he married Mary Jane Moore at Anamosa, Jones County, Iowa, and they raised seven children in Dallas County: Elliott, Robert, Howard, Joseph, Elizabeth, Walter and Louisa, known as Lutie. In 1884, when a railroad company abandoned its plan to lay track across his land and it returned to the government, Joseph drove a team of horses with his sons Elliott and Robert from near Des Moines to Plymouth County, where each of them homesteaded near Akron. Joseph built a house and stable on the north-east quarter of Section 13, Portland Township, and by 1887 had a 33-foot-square frame house, barn, granary and corncrib, 180 acres broken, 16 horses, 20 cattle and 30 hogs. He died on 18 February 1909 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery, Akron, beside Mary Jane, who died in 1930.
A Y-DNA test by a male-line descendant of Joseph of Akron, or of James Shields McCorkell, would show whether the Paisley McCorkells share the paternal line of the Donegal family. Information on Robert, the Methodist minister, and his family would also be welcome.
The Londonderry Sentinel, 1829–1869
The Londonderry Sentinel carried family notices from its first issue in 1829. These are all the McCorkell births, marriages and deaths in its first forty years, in date order. Many of the city entries belong to the Shipping McCorkells and their cousins.
| Year | Notice | Details |
|---|---|---|
| 1832 | Death | Isaac McCorkell, surgeon, at Vere, Jamaica, aged 33; son of James McCorkell, near Ramelton. |
| 1833 | Death | Mrs McCorkell, wife of William McCorkell, Esq., at Moville, aged 54. |
| 1836 | Birth | A daughter to A. McCorkell, Esq., Foyle Street. |
| 1836 | Death | William McCorkell, Esq., of this City, at his house in the Strand, aged 64. |
| 1839 | Birth | A son to Archibald McCorkell, Esq., Foyle Street. |
| 1840 | Death | Jane, aged four, daughter of Archibald McCorkell, Esq., solicitor, Foyle Street. |
| 1842 | Birth | A daughter to William McCorkell, Esq., Elagh Hall. |
| 1842 | Death | Mrs Margaret McCorkell, at Aughnish, near Ramelton, in her 82nd year. |
| 1844 | Birth | A daughter to Bartholomew McCorkell, Esq. |
| 1845 | Birth | A son to William McCorkell, Esq., Elagh Castle. |
| 1845 | Birth | A son to Bartholomew McCorkell, Esq., 20 October. |
| 1845 | Death | Thomas Moore McCorkell, Esq., of Baltimore, aged 27, at the house of George Foster, Esq., Strand. |
| 1846 | Birth | A son to Mrs Arthur McCorkell. |
| 1846 | Death | Mary, widow of Thomas McCorkell, formerly of this City, at Baltimore. |
| 1848 | Birth | A son to Archibald McCorkell, Esq., Elagh. |
| 1848 | Birth | A daughter to Mrs Bartholomew McCorkell, at the Strand. |
| 1848 | Birth | A daughter to Mrs A. McCorkell, Shipquay Street. |
| 1848 | Death | Mr William McCorkell, of Elagh; buried in the Cathedral burying ground. |
| 1849 | Death | Annie Mary Hay McCorkell, aged 16 months, daughter of Arthur McCorkell, Esq., at Portballintrae. |
| 1850 | Marriage | Mary Jane, youngest daughter of John McCorkell, Esq., Skeagh, to John A. Graham, saddler, Coleraine. |
| 1851 | Death | Martha, widow of Mr Thomas McCorkell, at Killea, aged 98. |
| 1852 | Birth | A son to Mrs Arthur McCorkell. |
| 1852 | Death | Margaret, wife of Mr James McCorkell, Queen Street. |
| 1854 | Death | Archibald McCorkell, of Glengallagh, Esq., solicitor, at the house of his brother-in-law Mr Cooke, Strand Road. |
| 1856 | Birth | A son to Archibald McCorkell, Esq., Great James Street. |
| 1857 | Birth | A daughter to Mr Arthur McCorkell. |
| 1857 | Marriage | Robert McCorkell to Jane Williams, Ballyrattan, at Moville Presbyterian Church. |
| 1857 | Marriage | Mary Anne, only daughter of Mr Robert McCorkell, Lifford, to James Purdon of Belfast, at Strabane. |
| 1857 | Death | Jane, wife of Arthur McCorkell, Esq., solicitor, Shipquay Street. |
| 1857 | Death | Mr Robert McCorkell, Abbey Street, aged 47, manager of the printing department of the Derry Journal. |
| 1857 | Birth | A son to Mrs B. McCorkell, at the Strand. |
| 1858 | Death | James Browne McCorkell, infant son of Bartholomew McCorkell, Esq., Strand. |
| 1858 | Death | Mary, wife of Mr John McCorkell, Abbey Street, aged 88. |
| 1858 | Marriage | Mary McCorkell, Carsamaddy, to S. Robinson, Bonnemaine, at Crossroads Presbyterian Church. |
| 1859 | Birth | A son to Archibald McCorkell, Esq., 13 Shipquay Street. |
| 1860 | Death | Jane Davida, aged six, eldest daughter of Mr Arthur McCorkell, at Moville. |
| 1860 | Marriage | John McCorkell of Drumnagore to Isabella, daughter of James Love, Ardmore, at Second Donagheady Presbyterian Church. |
| 1861 | Birth | A daughter to Archibald McCorkell, Esq., Shipquay Street. |
| 1861 | Death | Margaret, eldest daughter of the late William McCorkell, Esq., of this City, at Castlerock. |
| 1862 | Birth | A daughter to Archibald McCorkell, Esq., Shipquay Street. |
| 1863 | Death | Arthur McCorkell, Esq., solicitor, at his residence, Strand. |
| 1864 | Birth | A son to Archibald McCorkell, Esq., Queen Street. |
| 1864 | Death | Mr John McCorkell, Ferguson's Lane, aged 87. |
| 1865 | Birth | A daughter to Archibald McCorkell, Esq., T.C., 12 Queen Street. |
| 1865 | Death | George Foster McCorkell, aged 25, son of the late Thomas Moore McCorkell, at his uncle's, 12 Queen Street. |
| 1865 | Death | William Foster McCorkell, aged 16, second son of Bartholomew McCorkell, Esq., at Strand House. |
| 1867 | Birth | A son to Archibald McCorkell, Esq., Queen Street. |
| 1867 | Death | William, eldest son of the late Captain McCorkell, of this City, at St Louis. |
| 1868 | Birth | A son to Archibald McCorkell, Esq., 12 Queen Street. |
| 1869 | Death | Miss McCorkell, aged 64, eldest daughter of the late John McCorkell, at 77 William Street. |
Other families in the 1901 census, including Altaghaderry in Killea, will be added here. If your family is one of them, I would be glad to hear from you.
Sources
- Census of Ireland, 1901, National Archives of Ireland (census.nationalarchives.ie).
- Civil registration, Moville: marriage of Robert McCorkell and Jane Williams, 1857; death of William McCorkell, 1892.
- Griffith's Valuation, Moville Upper, 1857.
- Tithe Applotment Books, Moville 1828 and Burt 1837, National Archives of Ireland.
- Marriage notice of John A. Graham and Mary Jane McCorkell, 1850.
- Moville parish vestry book: cess list and signatures, 1792; tithe list, 1774.
- Northern Whig and Ballyshannon Herald, July 1845.
- Londonderry Sentinel family notices, 1845–1865, transcribed by Len Swindley (cotyroneireland.com).
- Family history of the descendants of David McCorkle of Paisley and Loughgilly, compiled by American descendants.
- Burke's Irish Family Records (1976), p. 173, and Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland, 4th ed. (1958), p. 459, as given on thepeerage.com.
- McCorkell estate, Landed Estates Database, University of Galway; Return of Owners of Land (1876).