Calhoun – Genealogy of the Calhoun Family

Posted on April 4, 2024 by anton88887 · 10 Comments

The Colhouns of Crosh, Part 1: The First Generations in Ireland

The Importance of the Crosh Family

Of the Colhouns of the Irish gentry, undoubtedly the most well-known group came to prominence near Newtownstewart, parish Ardstraw, County Tyrone, a family I refer to as Colhoun of Crosh. (I realize this term does not accurately describe the family as a whole, but it is a heck of a lot more convenient than referring to them as “The descendants of James Colhoun of the Newtownstewart area, one particular group of whom later lived in a manor house in the townland of Crosh in County Tyrone.”) They owe much of their renown (among genealogical researchers, at least) to a book published in 1904 by Charles Croslegh, who was himself a member of that family. The pedigree that Croslegh proposed shows his family to be the patrilineal descendants of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, the first well-documented Scottish Colquhoun landowner in Ireland. Because William Fraser had in 1869 published a pedigree of the Colquhoun of Luss family stretching from Alexander all the way back to the Colquhoun family’s 13^th-century founder, anyone claiming descent from the Colhoun of Crosh family in Ireland could boast of an unbroken pedigree back to the year 1240 or so.

The idea of an unbroken pedigree back to Luss proved too tempting to resist for many Calhoun genealogists, whether amateur or professional, casual or serious. Many Calhouns left Ireland for the Americas and other parts of the British Empire in the 18^th century as part of the Ulster Scot migration, and modern-day descendants of those emigrants who try to trace their ancestors often find their paper trails end at the Atlantic Ocean. Because Croslegh’s has been the most readily accessible pedigree of Irish Calhouns from the 17^th and 18^th centuries, many of these modern-day descendants make the assumption that their immigrant ancestor belonged to the Colhoun of Crosh family. And why wouldn’t they? Doing so would not only allow them to claim specific 18^th-century ancestors in Ireland, but would seemingly join their family to a ready-made pedigree stretching back an additional 500 years.

As I have tried to lay out in previous posts, there are two problems with this. The first is that the Colhouns of Crosh were only one of many Calhoun families in Ireland in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, each founded by a different settler from Scotland; therefore, it stands to reason that most Calhouns of the Irish diaspora are not closely related to the Colhouns of Crosh. The second is that even if one’s connection to the Crosh family were to prove true, the part of Croslegh’s pedigree connecting the Colhouns of Crosh in Ireland to Alexander Colquhoun of Luss in Scotland is seriously flawed. I described all the reasons why in two earlier posts (here and here), so I direct anyone interested to those articles rather than repeat the reasoning here.

In the last section of a previous post, I discussed the importance of finding at least one living Calhoun with both a genealogical and a Y-DNA genetic connection to the family’s 13^th-century founder, Humphrey of Kilpatrick: it would enable us to at least begin to map William Fraser’s extensive pedigrees onto the Y-DNA genetic tree, thus helping to interpret the ancestry of many modern Y-DNA testers. While the senior Scottish Colquhoun families have all died out in the male line, many people pointed to Croslegh’s pedigree as providing a critical male lineage through an Irish branch of the family. If my posts managed to convince you that Croslegh’s proposed connection between the Crosh and Luss families is not correct, then we were stuck, since to my knowledge at least, there was no alternative.

This left us in the following quandary. We had a number of living people who could claim genealogical descent from Humphrey of Kilpatrick, including the present-day Colquhoun lairds of Luss, but none followed the Calhoun male lineage continuously, meaning their Y-chromosome is not inherited from the earliest Colquhouns. Conversely, we had many others who could claim genetic descent from Humphrey in the male line, namely those men belonging to Y-DNA haplogroup E-Y16733, but none had a well-supported, unbroken genealogical connection to him. Therefore, we had people who could satisfy each one of our two necessary conditions, but no one who could satisfy both.

As it turns out, I believe we do have a group of living Calhouns that satisfies both conditions, and it is … the Colhoun of Crosh family! I have now managed to construct a new genealogical connection between the Crosh and Luss families. It is quite different from the one Croslegh proposed, but in my opinion, it is well supported by evidence. Furthermore, those of the Colhoun of Crosh family who have tested do indeed belong to Y-DNA haplogroup E-Y16733. We’re back in business!

I originally envisioned writing a series of two or three posts about the Crosh family, the first of the Colhoun families of the Irish gentry that I planned to tackle. However, it was in the course of writing and researching this first post that I discovered what I believe to be the family’s true origins in Scotland. To thoroughly discuss not only the various generations of the Crosh family in Ireland but also this new proposal will now probably take five or six posts altogether. Oh, well. In this first post of the series, I will discuss the family’s earliest days in 17^th century Ireland and the other Calhouns from that time who may have been related to them. In the next two posts, I will lay out my new proposal and invite feedback, so stay tuned!

The Mountjoy Family

The Colhouns of Crosh can be traced in Ireland back to 1631, when they were living on the manor of Newtownstewart in County Tyrone. Newtownstewart was named for Sir William Stewart, the senior-most owner of the property at that time. A Servitor who came to Ireland in the early days of the Plantation and diligently developed his land, Sir William was rewarded with numerous properties, including Newtownstewart. His descendants in the Stewart and Gardiner families were elevated to the peerage, and for simplicity, I will often refer to this family in its entirety as the Lords Mountjoy or the Mountjoy family. Subsequent generations of Mountjoys added to the family’s holdings before all of it was finally sold off in the mid-19^th century.

As a family of the gentry, the Colhouns of Crosh had ownership rights to various properties, but property rights were multilayered in those days, and their rights to most if not all of their holdings seem to have been subordinate to the Lords Mountjoy. Before discussing the Colhouns themselves, I want to describe those of the Mountjoys’ holdings in the Counties of Tyrone and Donegal most relevant to the Colhouns:

Manor of Ramelton and Fortstewart (parish Aughnish, barony Kilmacrenan, Co. Donegal). Originally the manor of Clonlarie [Glenleary] granted by patent in 1610 to the Servitor Sir Richard Hansard, it quickly passed to Sir William Stewart to become his first Irish holding.
Manor of Tirenemuriertagh [Tirmurty] (parishes Cappagh and Bodoney Lower, barony Strabane Upper, Co. Tyrone). Originally granted by patent to James Haig, it was surrendered in 1613 to joint ownership of Sir William Stewart and George Hamilton.
Manor of Mountstewart (aka Aghanteane, aka Rashmount Stewart; parish Clogher, barony Clogher, Co. Tyrone). Originally the manors of Ballyneconolly and Ballyranill granted to Edward Kingswell, Esq., probably a Servitor. Kingswell sold these lands in 1616 and they were enfeoffed to Sir William Stewart shortly thereafter. Except for a single mid-19^th century marriage record, I have found no Colhouns living in parish Clogher.
Manor of Newtownstewart (parishes Ardstraw and Cappagh, baronies Strabane Upper and Lower, Co. Tyrone). Originally the manors of Newtown and Lislap granted to James Clapham in 1610, they were soon transferred to Sir Robert Newcomen, from whom they passed by inheritance to his son-in-law Sir William Stewart in 1629.
Part of the manor of Wilson’s Fort (aka Killynure, aka Cavan; parishes Convoy, Raphoe, and Donaghmore, barony Raphoe, Co. Donegal). Originally the estates of Aghagalla and Convoigh [Convoy] granted to the Wilson family, it was around 1661 inherited by a descendant, Charles Hamilton, son of Andrew Hamilton, Esq. In 1676, a portion went to a Wilson relative, Capt. John Nisbitt of Tullydonnell, and the rest was sold in 1712 to Col. Alexander Montgomery of Croghan, Co. Donegal. Part was soon after acquired by the 2^nd Viscount Mountjoy. (Marilyn Lewis. “William Willson: From Clare to Donegal.” Ivan Knox, “The Houses of Stewart from 1500-” (2003), pp. 24-25.)

With the exception of Mountstewart, Colhouns lived or held property in all of these places (such as the townland of Crosh itself, which belonged to the manor of Newtownstewart). Because of the Colhoun of Crosh family’s long association with the Mountjoys, it is worth considering that Colhouns living on any of these Mountjoy estates––not just Newtownstewart––prior to the mid-19^th century might have been related to the Colhouns of Crosh.

Pedigree of the Mountjoy family. Owners of Newtownstewart are shown in boldface. Upon the death of Sir William Stewart, Earl of Blessington, Newtonstewart and the majority of the Stewart estates passed to Charles Gardiner, for whose son the title of Mountjoy was recreated. The Baronetcy of Ramelton, meanwhile, passed to Sir Annesley Stewart. Presumably, ownership of the Donegal estate went with the baronetcy, since at the time of Griffith’s Valuation, Sir James Stewart (8^th Baronet, son of the 7^th) was a significant landowner in the parishes of Aughnish, Conway, and Tullyfern in Co. Donegal.

James Colhoun and Alexander McCausland

A 1631 muster roll of men living on Sir William Stewart’s estates in Co. Tyrone includes the following names, located relatively near each other on the long list:

80. James Cacone, sword and pike
111. Alexander McCaslane, sword and snapchance

As I mentioned in a previous post, despite the butchering of the names, I believe these two men to have been James Colhoun and Alexander McCausland (the presumed future father-in-law of James’s son William), respectively. As they were considered old enough to fight in 1631, I estimate that both men were born between 1600-1610. Given that time frame, both men were probably born in Scotland. Unfortunately, the muster roll does not specify which townland, or even which manor, these tenants were living on. However, both the Colhoun of Crosh and the McCausland families later lived in the vicinity of Newtownstewart, so my best guess is that Alexander and James were living in that portion of the manor of Newtownstewart lying in parish Ardstraw.

Alexander McCausland was a soldier in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, ultimately siding with Oliver Cromwell, and through this service he became entitled to a share of forfeited land in 1653. “[Alexander] obtained a commission in the army, in time of the civil wars, in the reign of king Charles I. At the end of those wars, partly by debenture, partly by purchase, he acquired the estates of Resh and Ardstraw in the county of Tyrone” (William Buchanan of Auchmar. A Historical and Genealogical Essay upon the Family and Surname of Buchanan. Glasgow: William Duncan, 1723, pp. 274-5). Alexander’s land holdings in County Tyrone included the following:

Manor of Ardstraw (parish Ardstraw, barony Strabane Lower). Also known as the Termon, Erenach, or Churchlands of Ardstraw, this property was leased from the Bishop of Derry starting sometime prior to 1674. It appears that the McCauslands’ rights to Ardstraw were subordinate to the Earls of Abercorn.
Manor of Mountfield (parish Bodoney Lower, barony Strabane Upper). This property was first purchased or leased by the McCauslands from Sir Henry Tichbourne of Blessing in 1658 (patent rolls #3455, 18 Jun 1658, Merze Marvin Book, James II, p. 43). Alexander McCausland’s will states rent was owed to Sir William Tichbourne, suggesting the McCauslands’ rights remained subordinate to the Tichbournes’.
Manor of Rash (parish Cappagh, barony Strabane Upper). Located in the southern part of parish Cappagh. The townland of Rash was later called Mountjoy Forest, and it appears that the McCauslands’ rights to this property may have been subordinate to the Mountjoys.

Alexander’s will of 1674 states that his daughter Catherine was married to William Colhoun of Newtownstewart, who I presume was the son of the James Colhoun with whom Alexander appears on the muster roll.

The association between McCauslands and Colquhouns can be traced back to at least 1395 in Scotland, when John McAuslane of Caldenoch witnessed a charter in which Humphrey Colquhoun, 6^th/8^th of Luss granted the lands of Camstradden to his brother Robert. In 1631, the Colquhoun lairds of Luss were the immediate feudal superiors of the McCausland barons of Caldenoch, the family from which Alexander came. While it is by no means clear that James Colhoun was closely related to the Colquhouns of Luss, based on the long-standing connection between their ancestral Scottish families, it is certainly possible that James Colhoun and Alexander McCausland were friends and/or kinsmen in addition to being neighbors. Given the marriage between their children, the two men were probably also of similar social standing. Since Alexander was the supposed grandson of one of the barons McCausland, it seemed likely that James belonged to one of the Colquhoun families of the Scottish gentry. Initially, I tried to identify a candidate for James among the “missing links” of the various senior Scottish Colquhoun families, but to no avail. Eventually, I was able to determine that he was indeed from the Scottish gentry, as I will detail in an upcoming post.

At the risk of creating a new false narrative, (look out!) here come my unproven speculations. Alexander McCausland served in the army in the 1640s, likely as a middle-aged officer, and was rewarded with Irish property. James Colhoun, meanwhile, disappears from all records after the 1631 muster roll. My working hypothesis is that James either died in the Rebellion of 1641 or served in the army alongside Alexander McCausland and died in the ensuing war, in either case leaving his son William Colhoun an orphan, or at least fatherless. I speculate that after James’s death, the McCauslands “took charge” of William’s upbringing, in which arrangement William had the opportunity to meet and marry Alexander’s daughter. This scenario seems to me a plausible origin of the oral tradition handed down in the Colhoun of Crosh family (as related by Croslegh on p. x of his book) that states the family’s “first ancestor in Ireland … had come from Luss, as a child, under the charge of his uncle MacCausland.” Alexander McCausland was married to Jane (aka Janet, Jennett, Gennet) Hall, but we do not know anything about James Colhoun’s wife. While it is possible that she was a McCausland or a Hall, making Alexander a true uncle of William, I think it is equally possible that Alexander was more distant kin or even a family friend, with the oral tradition casting him as an “uncle” as a term of affection.

Again, Alexander McCausland was probably born between 1600-1610; William Colhoun was probably born about 1635 and married Alexander’s daughter Catherine about 1660. Records of the two men include the following (note that the 1659 Pender’s Census for County Tyrone does not survive):

Commissioners appointed for Poll Money Ordinances:

1660, County Tyrone, includes William Cahoon and Alexander mac Castguile (p. 627).
1661, County Tyrone, includes William Cahoon and Alexander mac Castlan (p. 646).

Hearth Money Roll, Co. Tyrone (1666):

Rathkelly [Rakelly], parish Ardstraw, William Colhoune, 1 hearth.
Lisnaresh [Lisnacreaght], parish Cappagh, Alexander M’Causland, 1 hearth.

Alexander McCausland’s Will

Fortunately, complete transcripts of the will of Alexander McCausland, Esq., dated 11 January 1674 and probated 1 July 1675, have survived the centuries (PRONI D669/29D). Here are a few of the relevant highlights:

To his “dearly beloved wife Jennett McCausland” he leaves half his moveable property and one third of the rents from the manors of Ardstraw and Mountfield. She is to pay the proportionate share of the rents due to the Bishop of Derry and Sir William Titchburne, Knt. on these manors, respectively.
To son Oliver McCausland he leaves the other half of his moveable property, plus the rights to the manors of Ardstraw and Mountfield with the exception of several townlands left to son Andrew. Rent profits to be paid to his wife.
To son Andrew McCausland £150; the outright ownership of the townland of Eskeradooey (parish Cappagh); the reversion of the leases of John Cunningham, Gent. for the townlands of Cullion and Lislap (parish Cappagh) in manor of Mountfield; rights to “the two towns of Aldclife” [Altcloghfin, parish Errigal Keerogue ?] and the townland of Ballykeel (parish Cappagh) held by lease from Lord Mountjoy.
To daughter Anne McCausland £150.
“I leave and bequeath to my grandchildren, viz., Alexander Coulhound and Gerrard Colhound £100 sterling English money equally to be divided between them, which I do hereby ordain and appoint my son Oliver McCausland to pay to them, and if it happen that they or any of them die that then the said sum to be paid by my son Oliver to the rest of the children begotten to be betwixt my daughter Catherine and my son in law William Colhoune.”
Should Oliver and Andrew and their heirs die, the manors of Ardstraw and Mountfield to be divided equally among his daughters Catherine Colhoun, Margery McClenahan, and Ann McCausland, “always reserving thereout to my daughter Catherine Colhoune more than to any other of my said daughters the castle of Ardstreagh with the other House, Gardens, Orchards, and two Parks adjoining to the Bridge of Ardstreagh” in addition to her equal share in the remainder.
Appoints sons-in-law William Colhoun of Newtownstewart and David McClenaghan of Newtownstewart, and son Oliver McCausland, as executors.
Appoints his “truly and well beloved friend[s]” Sir William Stewart, Bart. [Lord Mountjoy], John Colhoune of Letterkenny, John Johnston of Clare, and John Logan the Elder of Newtownstewart as overseers of the will.
Witnessed on 11 January 1674 by John Logan, Peter Colhoune, and John Logan Jun’r.

Selected passages from the will of Alexander McCausland, Esq. relevant to the Colhouns. (PRONI D669/29D; cropped from image kindly provided by Matthew Gilbert.)

From the will, we know that his eldest daughter Catherine married William Colhoun of Newtownstewart and that they had two children by that time, Alexander and Gerrard. It appears that these two were William and Catherine’s only children at that time, since he also held out the possibility that the couple might have more children in the future. We also know that among his trusted associates were two other Colhouns: John Colhoun of Letterkenny and Peter Colhoun of unstated residence. What are the odds that he would have such close ties to other Colhouns, at least one of whom was living a considerable distance away in Letterkenny, unless they were close relatives of his son-in-law William?

John and Peter Colhoun

The following Irish records mention a John and/or Peter/Patrick Colhoun that I believe refer to the men of those names in Alexander McCausland’s will. (As I have mentioned before, the names Peter and Patrick have highly similar Gaelic cognates and were often used interchangeably in those days.)

Prerogative will of Sir William Sempill of Letterkenny, dated 12 May 1644 (transcribed in Betham’s genealogical abstracts.): “To my servant John Colhoune, £18.” Witnesses to the will included Rev. Preb. Alix’r Coninghame, and John Colhoune.

Pender’s Census (1659): names Peter Colhoune and John Colhoune, Gents., of Letterkenny town (see p. 54). Also associated with them was Levinis Semphill.

Hearth Money Rolls (1660s):

1663 and 1665, Co. Donegal, Barony Kilmacrenan, parish Aughnish, Aughnish. John Colhoune.
1666, Co. Tyrone, Barony Strabane, parish Ardstraw, Lisnaman (Newtownstewart). Peter Colhoune.

Will of Henry Wray of Castle Wray, Co. Donegal, dated 9 August 1666 (Charlotte Violet Trench. The Wrays of Donegal. Oxford: University Press, 1945, p. 60.): mentions Henry Wray is to be buried in the church of Letterkenny, and names his wife as Lettice née Galbraith. A John Colhoune served as witness to the will.

List of representatives to the Laggan Presbytery during the period 1672-1700 (Rev. Alexander G. Lecky. In the Days of the Laggan Presbytery. Belfast: Davidson and M’Cormack, 1908, p. 144.): a John Colhoun was named as representing congregations at Donaghmore and Letterkenny as a Presbyterian elder or commissioner.

Chancery Bill, dated 25 Oct 1684 (PRONI T280, pp. 62-63.): Plaintiff Patrick Hamilton, Gent. Defendants Thomas McCausland (of Claraghmore, Co. Tyrone), Oliver McCausland, and John Colhoune. Defendant Thomas McCausland sold to the plaintiff his half-interest in the town of Drumragh in the Barony of Omagh, on lease from Bishop of Derry, for £131 on 23 Aug 1684. Will of Alexander McCausland left half-interest to son-in-law William Calhoune, other half in dispute but claimed by defendant Thomas McCausland, Alexander’s grandson, now age about 29 but a minor at the time of the will. Although the plaintiff paid the money, the defendant and his trustees, Oliver McCausland and John Colhoune, have refused to execute the deed.

Will index entries:

Patrick Colhoun, Aughnish (townland or parish), Co. Donegal, 1703.
Patrick Colhoune, Ardrummon (parish Aughnish), Co. Donegal, 1704.

An analysis of these records now follows.

John Colhoun appears first in 1644 and last in 1684, so we might estimate he lived in the general range 1610-1685, of similar age to James Colhoun of Newtownstewart. John appears in three wills, all associated somehow with Letterkenny. In the will of Sir William Sempill from 1644, John is described not only as a witness, but also as Sir William’s “servant”, to whom he left a small bequest. The other witness, Rev. Alexander Conyngham (d. 1660), was the Dean of Raphoe and a powerful and influential cleric in the Church of Ireland. This, along with the fact that John was a Gentleman, i.e. had some social standing, suggests John was not a menial servant but rather served in some administrative capacity, perhaps as Sempill’s estate agent. Importantly, not only was Sempill the owner of the Manor of Letterkenny (later the Manor of Manor-Sempill) and other lands in Donegal, but he was also the son-in-law of Sir William Stewart of Ramelton, owner of the manors of Ramelton in Donegal and Newtownstewart in Tyrone (see the tree of the Mountjoy family above).

In 1659, Pender’s census lists among the ten titled land-owners in Letterkenny, John and Peter Colhoun, Gents. Also with them were Rev. Alexander Conyngham (co-witness with John Colhoun on Sempill’s will) and his son James, and Levinis Sempill (not a son of Sir William, but presumably a relative). These names suggest this is the same John Colhoun who witnessed Sempill’s will in 1644, and that he and Peter were associated and likely related.

In both 1663 and 1665, the Hearth Money Rolls for the Barony of Kilmacrenan, Co. Donegal show a John Colhoun in Augnish, parish Aughnish. This was on the lands owned by the Mountjoy family, close relatives of Sir William Sempill, suggesting this is again the same John. About that same time (1666), John was a witness on a second will, that of the young Henry Wray, from a land-owning family related to the Gores and Galbraiths. Wray lived at Castlewray and Bogay in parish Aghanunshin, which is sandwiched between parish Aughnish to the north and Letterkenny to the south.

The last records of John of which we can be relatively certain are his appearance on Alexander McCausland’s will in 1674, where John is described as “of Letterkenny,” and a chancery bill from 1684 to resolve a disputed claim from that will. Whether he was the same person as the John Colhoun of Letterkenny who was a Presbyterian elder during that period is less clear. Most of John’s other known associations were with solidly Anglican gentry, namely the McCauslands, Stewarts, and Conynghams. However, it cannot be ruled out.

Peter Colhoun first appears in Pender’s census in 1659, when he and John were among the tituladoes of Letterkenny. At the time of the Hearth Money Rolls (1663-1666), Peter is found only in County Tyrone (1666), when he was living in Lisnaman (which probably referred to Lislas, the original name of the townland of Newtownstewart), parish Ardstraw. He was likely still living there in 1674 when he served as witness to the will of Alexander McCausland. However, he may have later returned to Donegal, since will index entries for a Patrick Colhoun of parish Aughnish can be found in 1703 (Aughnish, parish or townland) and 1704 (Ardrummon townland in parish Aughnish). (These two entries may refer to the same person, since the 1703 entry is for a testamentary and the 1704 entry for an administration bond.) If we assume that the Peter of Pender’s census was born about 1630, he could certainly have died around 1703. Both Aughnish in Co. Donegal and Newtownstewart in Co. Tyrone were Mountjoy properties, and movement back and forth between properties under the same landlord is not unreasonable.

If in fact Peter were born about 1630, he was of an age to have been a son of James and brother of William Colhoun of Newtownstewart. Despite the fact that Peter lived near William in 1666, I think this is unlikely for two reasons. First, it appears that Peter lived near John in Letterkenny before moving to parish Ardstraw, suggesting a closer association with John. Second, the name Peter/Patrick does not appear among William’s known descendants. I therefore think it is more likely that Peter was a son of John (or perhaps a brother or some other relationship). Finding John and/or Peter on the 1631 muster rolls would have been very informative, but unfortunately the rolls for the Barony of Kilmacrenan in Donegal (where he/they would most likely have been living at that time) have not survived. Finally, although I think it is unlikely that Peter was a brother of William, I do think it is quite possible that John of Letterkenny was the brother of James from the Newtownstewart muster roll.

Either way, both James and John appear to have been Scottish natives, meaning that to date, Colhoun of Crosh is the only Irish Calhoun family for which we can name the Scottish founder(s). Now if only we could place them in Scotland….

Are you aware of any other records pertaining to James, John, and Peter/Patrick Colhoun? Can you shed any further light on the relationships between them? If so, I’d love to hear from you!

*****

Special thanks to Paul Calhoun and Mike Barr for critical reading of this post and helpful edits, and thanks as well to Matthew Gilbert for the photos of Alexander McCausland’s will.

*****

For a list of posts, visit The Genealogy of the Calhoun Family homepage.

Posted on February 29, 2024March 1, 2024 by anton88887 · 11 Comments

The Colhouns of the Irish Gentry

Why the Gentry?

The 17^th century saw many Scots resettle in Ireland, particularly in the northernmost province of Ulster. This migration was driven by a series of events throughout that century, including:

The privately-financed settlement of Scots in Counties Antrim and Down engineered by Hugh Montgomery and James Hamilton in 1606.
The royally-sanctioned Ulster Plantation, which covered most of the rest of Ulster, starting in 1609.
The conclusion of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in 1653, after which many Scottish Covenanter soldiers stationed in Ireland chose to remain.
The conclusion of the Williamite War in the 1690s, at which time famine in Scotland and cheap rents in Ireland caused many Scots to relocate.

Among the Scottish settlers who came to Ireland were numerous Colquhouns. Exactly how many we cannot say since we have to assume that many were tenant farmers and tradesmen who went largely unrecorded, or at least are underrepresented in surviving records.

This post focuses on the wealthier minority of Irish Colhoun families. Although ancestrally Scottish, they would have been considered part of the Anglo-Irish elite, the so-called Protestant Ascendancy that dominated political, legal, and economic life in Ireland until the reforms of the mid-19^th century. Being in the good graces of the Crown, they belonged to the Church of Ireland, the state-sanctioned Anglican church that held most of the ecclesiastical power and property in Ireland. Although none of the wealthier Calhouns (whether in Scotland, Ireland, or elsewhere) ever made it to the peerage (the highest tier of British nobility), they did belong to the gentry (wealthy, land-owning commoners eligible for coats of arms, with titles ranging from “Gentleman” to “Baronet”; see here for descriptions).

You might ask, If these guys were the minority, why focus so much attention on them? Don’t the rich get enough resources already? The fact is that from the 17^th to early 19^th centuries, the Calhouns of Ireland most often recorded in surviving documents were those of the Irish gentry: they bought and sold land, acted as landlords on estate records, appeared in court proceedings, petitioned the Crown, left wills, etc. As a result, these families tend to have relatively long paper trails. Tenant farmers also appeared in rental records, but in general these appearances were fewer and farther between, making their families harder to trace.

The long paper trails of the Irish gentry can be genealogically useful not only to members of those families themselves, but also to the rest of us. Using Y-DNA genetic information, we can often estimate when the most recent common patrilineal ancestor of two Calhoun men lived. If the first of those men has a long paper trail, perhaps because he is a descendant of the gentry, and if the second man shares a common ancestor with the first during the timeframe of that trail, then the second man might reasonably assume that some of his own ancestors appear in the pedigree of the first.

These relatively long paper trails also mean that if any Irish Calhoun family might be traced back to Scotland, it would be one of the gentry. Furthermore, there was not a lot of room for upward social mobility in Britain in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, so I have to assume that the Colhouns of the Irish gentry were descended from Colquhouns of the Scottish gentry. (Some Irish families did initially acquire land through military service rather than by purchase, but I tend to think that most soldiers receiving larger Irish land grants were military officers––who again tended to come from wealthier families––rather than foot soldiers.) Thanks in part to the work of Sir William N. Fraser, many of the Colquhoun families of the Scottish gentry have the benefit of a relatively solid pedigree back to Humphrey of Kilpatrick, the 13^th century founder of the family. If we could join ourselves to the Irish gentry, and the Irish gentry to the Scottish gentry, we might be able to trace our Calhoun lineages back to the year 1240. Wishful thinking, of course, but we have to try, don’t we?

Although there was limited upward social mobility in centuries past, there was certainly downward mobility. Those who were financially unsuccessful, or were younger sons of younger sons that did not inherit much, could fall out of the gentry class. Those of us with Irish Calhoun ancestry who do not have long paper trails (i.e., most of us) might be descendants of working-class Colquhouns who came to Ireland as tenants, or we might just as easily be descendants of Irish gentry families who for whatever reason eventually lost title and property. With enough Y-DNA data, we may eventually be able to distinguish between these two scenarios, at least in certain cases.

Below are brief descriptions of the distinct Colhoun families of the Irish gentry that I have been able to identify so far. (I use the spelling “Colhoun” because all of them came from western Ulster where that spelling predominated, as opposed to eastern Ulster, where “Cahoon” and “Cohoon” were more common.) In Scotland, the senior Colquhoun families were styled (at least by Fraser) by the principal property they owned, like “Colquhoun of Luss”, “Colquhoun of Camstradden”, “Colquhoun of Kilmardinny”, etc. In Ireland, I have not seen this tradition used as consistently, or at least not in a hereditary fashion, so I have had to make up my own titles to describe these families. Previous posts discussed Colquhoun of Corkagh. I will devote future posts to each of the other families in turn, but for now, I simply want to enumerate them.

Colquhoun of Corkagh

Corkagh was an estate, located in parish Raymoghy, Co. Donegal, that was created in 1610 as part of the original Plantation of Ulster. Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss purchased this property from his nephew, Sir Walter Stewart of Minto, in the 1610s. The two previous posts concerning the history of this property mention that those of the family who actually lived in Ireland included just two generations from the male line: Alexander’s grandsons James Colquhoun (later 19^th/21^st of Luss) and Alexander Colquhoun (later 1^st of Tillyquhoun) from the first generation, and James’s son Capt. James Colquhoun of Manorcunningham from the second. This is the only family of the Irish gentry for which we know the Scottish founder with certainty [WOOHOO!]. However, it is also one where the male line quickly died out, precluding its participation in Y-DNA comparisons [D’OH!]

Shown on the map above in orange: Corkey and Manorcunningham.

Colhoun of Crosh

This family can be traced back to about 1630 to the area around Newtownstewart, a village in parish Ardstraw, Co. Tyrone. Around 1725, the senior member of the family, William Colhoun, acquired property in the townlands of Crosh and Croshballinree, just outside Newtownstewart, and Crosh is the place name most commonly associated with the family. However, many family members lived elsewhere in western Tyrone and Donegal, notably Rev. Alexander Colhoun Sr. (1663-1719), one of several Church of Ireland ministers in the family.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the Colhouns of Crosh were the only Calhoun family living in Ireland in the 1700s. This is because until recently, many if not most Calhouns with Irish origins claimed descent from this family, particularly from the above-mentioned Rev. Alexander Colhoun Sr. It seems that virtually every Calhoun immigrant to America born within 20 years of 1700 was stated to have been a son of Rev. Alexander. Thanks to widespread availability of more records and to Y-DNA genetic testing, we now know that in most cases this is simply not true.

Y-DNA haplogroups associated with this family are MF104747 for select members, and its parental haplogroup, FT350465, for the entire family.

Shown on the map above in magenta: Crosh/Newtownstewart, Strahulter, Sixmilecross, and Ballyhallaghan.

Colhoun of Taughboyne

The Colhouns of Taughboyne included several lawyers and clerks as well as John Colhoun (d. 1755), the estate agent for the Earl of Abercorn in the 1740s and 1750s. The family originated in parish Taughboyne, Co. Donegal about 1665, and the senior members owned the townland of Corncammon (aka Corncamble) in the adjacent parish of Allsaints. However, the family was also associated with Buncrana and Carnamoyle on the Inishowen Peninsula, Strabane in Co. Tyrone, Dublin, and other places.

In Our Calhoun Family, Orval Calhoun states that the John Colhoun (d. 1755) mentioned above was a son of Rev. Alexander Colhoun Sr. of Crosh (as was every other Calhoun, it seems!) However, the Y-DNA haplogroup associated with the Colhoun of Taughboyne family is BY153907, which originated early in the Ulster Plantation years. The Crosh family is negative for BY153907, which indicates the Crosh and Taughboyne families were descendants of different Ulster settlers from Scotland. Nonetheless, due to the popularity of Orval’s books, the misconception that they were a single Irish family persists to the present day.

Shown on the map above in green: Corncammon, St. Johnston, Buncrana, Carnamoyle, and Strabane.

Colhoun of Letterkenny

This family, associated with the town of Letterkenny (parish Conwal) and the townland of Carrickballydooey (parish Raymoghy), both in Co. Donegal, was the subject of an entry in A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland (Sir Bernard Burke and A. C. Fox-Davies. London: Harrison & Sons, 1912, p. 121). The article traces the family to John Colhoun and Susanna Leslie, who lived in the early 18^th century. It seems that with each generation after about 1750, the family produced only a single male heir, inevitably named Charles. Unfortunately, as best I can tell, this male line of Charleses came to an end in 1972 with the death in London of Charles K. Colhoun, a literary scholar and translator. Unfortunately, unless other members can be identified, we will have no Y-DNA information about this family.

Shown on the map above in blue: Letterkenny and Carrickballydooey.

Colhoun of Tironeill

This family held property in parish Clonleigh, Co. Donegal, including the townland of Tironeill and the estate of Bullock House in Boyagh, as well as the townland of Lisanelly, parish Cappagh, Co. Tyrone. They have been traced as far as a Robert Colhoun Sr. who was probably born in the mid-1700s.

I confess I’m cheating a bit here. Y-DNA results show this family belongs to haplogroup FTA80569, which is a subgroup of BY153907. Because BY153907 originated around the time of the Ulster Plantation, it appears likely that the Colhouns of Tironeill are a branch of the Colhouns of Taughboyne; however, the connection between the two families has not (yet) been documented.

Shown on the map above in yellow: Tironeill/Boyagh and Lisanelly.

Colhoun of Labbadish

The townland of Labbadish is adjacent to Carrickballydooey in parish Raymoghy, Co. Donegal, so it is possible that this family is in fact a branch of the Colhouns of Letterkenny described above. However, there is as yet no documentary or genetic proof of this, and no one from this family has participated in the Colhoun Y-DNA Project as of yet.

It is also not clear whether every Colhoun from Labbadish was part of the same family. Early “members” include John Colhoun, Esq. of Labbadish, born about 1740; and William Colhoun, Esq. of Green Cottage in Labbadish, born about 1777. How they and others from that area were related, if at all, is not clear.

Shown on the map above in red: Labbadish.

Conclusion

From the records I have seen, all of the Calhouns living in Ireland in the 17^th-19^th centuries who appear to have had money, title, or land can be connected to one of the six families mentioned above. However, the records I have seen are limited, so there could well have been others. These families tended to marry within their own social class, and marriage contracts often involved the acquisition or exchange of land rights with spouses’ families. The map above shows the result of this process after several generations, with land holdings of members of the same gentry family sometimes extending to different parishes and different counties.

In a previous post, I mentioned that Y-DNA data indicated that Calhoun testers of Irish ancestry from haplogroup E-Y16733 were descended from as many as seven Scottish Colquhoun settlers of Ireland. Additional testing since that post was written (July 2023) suggests an eighth settler. At least two of these settlers had descendants among the six gentry families above. In addition, Calhouns from two non-E haplogroups (R1b1a2_N and J2) also have Irish ancestry. Both of these groups likely arose through NPEs, and it is not yet known whether they arose before or after the 17^th century settlement of Ireland by Scots. As always, Y-DNA testing of more Irish Calhouns may help to give us a clearer picture.

Are you aware of other Calhouns of the Irish gentry who cannot be connected with one of the families above? Can you shed any light on the relationships between these families? If so, I’d love to hear from you!

*****

Thanks again to John Grenham for the use of the map from his website, and once again, thanks to Paul Calhoun for critical reading of this post and helpful edits.

*****

Posted on December 14, 2023February 10, 2024 by anton88887 · 4 Comments

The First Calhouns of Ireland

As far as I have been able to determine, the first Calhouns to settle in Ireland came from Scotland in the early 17^th century with the private plantation of Counties Antrim and Down and the royally-sanctioned plantation of most of the remainder of Ulster. The Plantation of Ulster, which was underway by 1609, distributed half a million acres of land seized from the native Irish inhabitants to new English and Scottish owners. The recipients of this land belonged to several different groups: Undertakers (wealthy, land-owning English and Scottish men who could serve as large landlords), Servitors (men who had served the Crown in some military or civilian capacity during the Nine Years War), the Anglican Church of Ireland, and certain English corporations. Different precincts within the escheated territory were earmarked for each of these various groups.

In this article, I will focus on the period 1606-1641, prior to the Rebellion of 1641 that drove away many planters. Records of Calhouns in Ireland during this period are relatively scant and come from the following limited set of sources:

Letters patent of denization, 1617-1630.
Surveys of the Ulster Plantation, 1611-1622.
Muster rolls for select Irish estates, 1630-1631.
Clergy records for the (Church of Ireland) Diocese of Clogher, 1637.
Londonderry port records, 1613-1615.

The muster rolls merit a brief description here. Undertakers were so called because they were to “undertake” the resettlement of English-speaking Protestants, many of whom came from their own estates in England or Scotland, on the Irish land. Among the conditions Undertakers agreed to was that they “shall have ready in the houses at all times, a convenient store of arms, wherewith they may furnish a competent number of men for their defence, which may be viewed and mustered every half year according to the manner of England.” One might imagine that many of these men were not family members of the landed Undertakers but rather were working-class Scots enticed by opportunities to work the Irish land and willing to take up arms to defend it. However, little biographical information about these Irish tenants has survived.

These surviving sources are far from complete: the plantation surveys typically named only the landlords, not the tenants, and muster rolls survive for only a fraction of the estates. As a result, there may have been more Calhouns residing in Ireland at that time than are represented in these sources.

Calhouns in County Tyrone

For the period 1606-1641, I have found only a single Calhoun associated with County Tyrone, but he is of historical significance, as he is the likely ancestor of the Colhoun family of Crosh in parish Ardstraw. The Colhouns of Crosh and of that parish in general were tenants of the Lords Mountjoy, and the ancestor of the Mountjoy line in Ireland was Sir William Stewart (ca. 1574-1646). Sir William was born in Wigtownshire, Scotland and became a career soldier, serving first in Denmark and Sweden before coming to Ireland in 1608 with a company of 100 foot-soldiers. In recognition of his military service, he was awarded 1,000 acres of land in the barony of Kilmacrenan, County Donegal, a district awarded to Scottish Servitors. On his land, he founded the town of Ramelton and castle of Fort Stewart, and because of his success there was made a baronet in 1623 and was able to acquire additional estates in Donegal and Tyrone. Those in Tyrone included a 2,000 acre parcel originally granted to James Chapman but subsequently in the hands of Sir Robert Newcomen, who was Sir William’s father-in-law (Rev. George Hill. An Historical Account of the Plantation of Ulster. Belfast: M’Caw, Stevenson & Orr, 1877, pp. 532-533). On 26 Jul 1629, Sir William Stewart obtained letters patent of denization, and this property, originally the proportions of Newtown and Lislapp, was created the manor of Newtownstewart.

A muster roll from Sir William Stewart’s property in Tyrone dated 1631 includes the following two important names:

80. James Cacone, sword and pike.
111. Alexander McCaslane, sword and snaphance.

The muster roll is entitled “Sir William Stewart, Knight, Undertaker of 4,000 acres: His Men and Armes in the Barony of Clogher, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.” However, I think this title is misleading in that the list probably includes not only Stewart’s property in Clogher but also that at Newtownstewart in parish Ardstraw, in the Barony of Strabane. The reason is that the transcription available online contains records from John Gebbie’s Ardstraw: Historical Survey of a Parish 1600-1900 (Omagh: Strule Press, 1968) and from R. J. Hunter’s Men and Arms (Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2012). The two names above came from the latter set.

The Alexander listed above was undoubtedly Alexander McCausland or McAuselan, son of Andrew McAuselan and father-in-law of William Colhoun (b. ca. 1635) of Newtownstewart, ancestor of the Colhoun family of Crosh. I suggest that the “James Cacone” listed above was in fact a James Colhoun and that he was William Colhoun’s father. Thus, the Colhoun and McCausland families were neighbors in Ardstraw as early as 1631, when both were tenants of Sir William Stewart. I will devote a future post to the Colhoun family of Crosh and its branches.

Calhouns in County Fermanagh

Two ecclesiastical sources mention a James Colquhoun who was a Church of Ireland rector in two different parishes in Ulster in 1637.

James Colquhoun was incumbent rector in the townland of Mullanarockan, parish Tedavnet, County Monaghan from 20 May 1637 to 28 Aug 1637. He was followed in that position by Humphrey Galbraith (collated 4 Dec 1637), who was later Archdeacon of Clogher. (Evelyn Philip Shirley. The History of the County of Monaghan. London: Pickering and Co., 1879, p. 304. Also Rev. James B. Leslie. Clogher Clergy and Parishes. Enniskillen: R. H. Ritchie, 1929, p. 254.)

On 28 Aug 1637, James Colquhoun was installed as rector of the parish of Boho (also spelled Boghagh), County Fermanagh, evidently having transferred from Tedavnet. He likely served until about 1640. (Leslie, p. 123.)

This James Colquhoun who was a clergyman in 1637 was probably not the same as the James Colhoun (Cacone) who was listed on the muster roll in Tyrone in 1631. As I mentioned above, I believe James of parish Ardstraw in Tyrone was the ancestor of later Colhouns of that area, and this is not consistent with his having left that area for Monaghan and Fermanagh in 1637. James the clergyman probably remained in Fermanagh after 1640, since he was likely the James Kahoon who was buried in the parish of Enniskillen, County Fermanagh on 15 Jan 1673/4. (See Enniskillen Parish Burial Extracts 1666-1824.)

Calhouns in County Antrim

Although they have received much less attention from the genealogical community than the Calhoun settlers of western Ulster, there were also Calhouns in the east of Ulster (Counties Antrim and Down) from the early days of the Plantation Era. Many in the east later spelled the name Cahoon or Cohoon, as opposed to Colhoun, the spelling that predominated in western Ulster.

The muster rolls of 1630 from eastern Ulster list the following Calhouns, all in County Antrim (spellings taken from R. J. Hunter (ed.), Men and Arms: The Ulster Settlers, c.1630, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2015):

Muster roll for Mr. Adare’s British Tenants on His Native Lands, 1630:

Patrick Cahowne, Barony of Toome, Co. Antrim

Muster roll for the Earl of Antrim’s British tenants, 1630:

Robert Cahawin, Barony of Glenarm, Co. Antrim
James Cahowne, Barony of Glenarm, Co. Antrim
Thomas Cahowne, Barony of Glenarm, Co. Antrim

The Barony of Toome is in the interior of Antrim, bordering Lough Neagh to the south and County Derry to the west; the Patrick named above may have been an ancestor of the Peter Cahound of parish Ballymena listed in the 1740 Religious Census. The Barony of Glenarm is located on the coast; several Cahoons were listed there in the Hearth Money Rolls of 1669, but few or none can be found there in later times.

Calhouns in County cavan

Another county where the spelling Cahoon or Cohoon has predominated is Cavan, located in south-central Ulster. The following muster roll record indicates that Cahoons were living in Cavan from the early days of the Plantation.

Muster roll of Sir Stephen Butler, knight, undertaker of 2,000 acres, his men and arms:

Richard Cahowne, no arms; Barony of Loughty, Co. Cavan

Calhouns in County Derry/Londonderry

1630 Muster Roll showing “The names of the Men of the Citty and Libertyes of Londonderry”. (The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol 38 no. 3 (1914), pp. 355-373):

Edward Qualane, no arms

In addition, Calhouns appear in the following shipping records of the port of Londonderry (taken from R. J. Hunter, The Ulster Port Books, 1612-15, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2022). However, it cannot be assumed that they lived there, or in Ireland at all.

May and June 1613. “Small boat of Scotland” under Capt. Robert Cohone, arrivals. Merchants were Robert Cohone himself and Hugh Tompson.
30 May 1614. The Roberte (or Robarte) of Dumbarton, 8 tons, under Capt. Robert Cohone, arrivals. Merchants were John Balie, William Keningham, and Hugh Cohone.
January and May 1615. The Roberte of Dumbarton, 8 or 5 tons, under Capt. Robert Cohone, arriving Londonderry. Merchants were Robert Cohone himself (bringing 4 tons of coal) and William Keningham (bringing salt, cloth, brass and iron pots and kettles, raw iron, alum, grains, wool, and other goods).
27 February 1615. The John of Renfrew, 20 tons, under Capt. Adam Moderwell, sailing from Londonderry to Renfrew. Merchant Andrew Cohone (taking 2 dickers of hides).

In all likelihood, the captain Robert Cohone was a resident of Dumbarton, Scotland, as that is where his ship hailed from. The Hugh Cohone for whom he brought goods to Ireland in 1614 may have been a brother or other relative, also presumably Scottish. The most likely Irish resident was the merchant Andrew Cohone, since he seems to have exported hides from Ireland to Scotland. It is possible that he was a recent (in 1615) transplant to Ireland, perhaps even the Andrew Coohone of Droughedonan made denizen of Ireland in 1617 (see the Donegal discussion below).

Calhouns in County Donegal

Most of the records of Calhouns in Ireland from 1606-1641 come from County Donegal, specifically from the Laggan, a fertile valley in the northeast of the county just south of the Inishowen Peninsula, roughly equivalent to the Barony of Raphoe. The Laggan was divided into two Plantation precincts: the northern precinct of Portlough, which was allocated to Scottish Undertakers, and the southern precinct of Lifford, which was allocated to English Undertakers. Because the Undertakers of Portlough came from the southwest of Scotland, where many Colquhouns lived––areas like Dunbartonshire, Ayrshire, and Renfrewshire––many Scottish Colquhouns who went to Ireland settled initially in Portlough. This district included roughly the parishes of Allsaints, Raymoghy, Taughboyne, Killea, and Raphoe.

The parishes of County Donegal, with the boxed area (enlarged in the figure below) being the area of greatest Colquhoun settlement in the county. (Source: interactive parish map at http://www.johngrenham.com; used with permission.)

Calhoun Undertakers and Patentees. Among the original Undertakers themselves, whether at Portlough or anywhere else, there were no Colquhouns. A list of Scottish applicants for land in Ulster dated 14 September 1609 includes the following entries (Hill, p. 139):

Mr. Malcolm Colquhoun, burgess of Glasgow, 2,000 acres; surety: Alexander Colquhoun of Luss.
Parlane MacWalter, of Auchinvennell, 2,000 acres; surety: Alexander Colquhoun of Luss.

The bondsman in both cases was Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss. Parlane was one of Alexander’s tenants, while Malcolm may have been the same Malcolm Colquhoun supported by Alexander in his (unsuccessful) 1608 bid to become minister at Luss (see Fraser vol. 1, pp. 218-220). However, neither of these applicants appears to have received any land.

The following Calhouns received letters patent of denization from the Crown, suggesting they were involved or potentially involved in acquiring or selling Irish land (page numbers from Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalization for Aliens in England and Ireland, 1603-1700, in The Publications of the Huguenot Society at London, vol. XVIII. Lymington: William A. Shaw, 1911):

20 May 1617. Sir Alexander Colquhon, of Corkagh, in Co. Donegal, Knight. (p. 324).
20 May 1617. Daniel Colquhoun, of Corkie, of the Scotch nation or descent. (p. 325).
28 Nov 1617. Andrew Coohone, of Droughedonan. (p. 327).
28 Nov 1617. Peter Coohone, of Droughedonan. (p. 327).
14 Jul 1630. Robert Colqunhowne, Esq., a native of Scotland. Granted Corkagh (1,000 acres), which was also designated a manor. (p. 333).

As mentioned in an earlier post, the Alexander Colquhoun “of Corkagh” referred to the laird of Luss despite his not living in Ireland and not being a knight. Sometime prior, he had purchased the manor of Corkagh from his nephew Sir William Stewart of Minto, the original patentee. Alexander received his letter patent three days before his death, perhaps in order to obtain clear title to the Irish land before passing it on through inheritance. The identity of Daniel Colquhoun, also evidently of Corkagh, who received his letter patent on the same day as Alexander, is somewhat of a mystery. Fraser makes no mention of any Daniel Colquhoun in the Luss family, nor is anyone of that name mentioned in Alexander’s will as a relation, witness, or associate. My best guess is that “Daniel” was an error either in the original letter or in the transcription. If so, the most likely candidate for the identity of this denizen would have been Alexander’s eldest son, John Colquhoun, later 16^th/18^th of Luss. This letter patent might have been granted as a contingency given that Alexander was so close to death at the time, but this is all pure speculation on my part.

The other Colquhoun associated with Corkagh who received a letter patent was Robert Colquhoun, who at the same time (1630) received the 1,000 acre manor as a new grant. As I proposed in my last post, this Robert was most likely Robert Colquhoun, later 10^th of Camstradden, a close friend and associate of the Colquhoun of Luss. Because there is no evidence that Robert had anything further to do with Corkagh, this may have been some kind of financial or legal maneuver designed ultimately to keep the estate in the hands of the Luss family.

Six months after Alexander and John (Daniel) Colquhoun received their denization, an Andrew and Peter Colquhoun, along with a William Crawford, all of Droughedonan, received theirs. Aside from these denizations, the only other reference to a place called Droughedonan that I have found occurs in the “examination and confession of Brien M’Coyne O’Doghertie at Lifford, 13 August 1608” (Calendar of State Papers Relating to Ireland in the Reign of James I, p. 20): “…Sir Neale Garve O’Donnell sent a messenger to Sir Cahir O’Dogherty, advising him to bring up a piece of ordnance from Derry to Droghedonan [sic], whereupon the said Sir Neale would advise Sir Richard Hansard to go with some small forces to Droghedonan to receive the said piece…” The references to Derry and Lifford suggest that Droughedonan was likely in Portlough. Therefore, based on phonetic similarity, it probably referred to the townland of Drumatoland (parish Raymoghy).

And who were Andrew and Peter? Andrew was not a common name in the Luss family, but it was common in a cadet branch, Colquhoun of Bonhill, a family also associated with Milton. As for the name Peter, at that time in Scotland and Ireland, it was often used as a nickname for Patrick. Among the recipients of bequests mentioned in the supplement to the will of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss were “Patrick Colquhoun of Milton” and “Andrew Colquhoun, servant of Patrick”, both of whom received 500 merks, apparently for their assistance during the Battle of Glen Fruin. John Colquhoun, 3^rd of Bonhill, was killed at Glen Fruin in 1603, and he had younger brothers named Patrick and Andrew, as well as a son named Andrew (Fraser vol. 2, p. 263). I suggest, without proof beyond the similarity of naming patterns, that the Peter and Andrew who became denizens of Ireland six months after Alexander’s death in 1617 were the same two men mentioned in his will, perhaps having used their bequests to acquire small amounts of Irish land for themselves.

Muster Rolls of 1630 and Estates. All of the Calhouns listed in the muster rolls of 1630-1631 in County Donegal are from the precinct of Portlough. Of the nine Undertakers who received land in Portlough, eight were named either Cunningham or Stewart, with the ninth named MacAulay. Three of these Undertakers had Calhouns listed on the rolls for their estates: Sir Ludovic Stewart, Duke of Lennox; Sir James Cunningham of Glengarnock, Ayrshire; and James Cunningham, Esq., uncle of Sir James of Glengarnock. All three were related either by blood or marriage to the Colquhouns of Luss.

Closeup of the region of Portlough from the figure above, including the parishes of Allsaints (pink), Raymoghy (yellow), and Taughboyne (purple). The approximate extents of the holdings of four Undertakers are outlined: Colquhoun of Luss (i.e., Corkagh; green), James Cunningham, Esq. (blue), Sir James Cunningham (red), and the Duke of Lennox (orange). The townland of Drumatoland is also indicated (black). (Source: interactive parish map at http://www.johngrenham.com; used with permission.)

Sir Ludovic Stewart (1574-1624), 2^nd Duke of Lennox, was not only feudal lord superior to the Colquhoun of Luss, but also a distant cousin, both men being descendants of Sir John Stewart, 1^st Earl of Lennox. The Duke received the largest grant in Portlough, comprising three adjoining proportions of 1,000 acres each, all located in parish Taughboyne and designated the manors of Magevelin, Lettergull, and Cashell. Magevelin included the townlands of Momeen, Maymore, Ratteen, Creaghadoos, Mongavlin, and part of Altaskin. Lettergull included the townlands of Dromore, Carrickmore, Tullyrap, Feddyglass, Lettergull, Ballylennan, and Carnshannagh. Cashell included the townlands of Kinnacally, “Cashell” (probably Castletown), Clashygowan, Moness, Cloghfin, Tonagh, and part of Altaskin. By 1630, after the deaths of both Ludovic and his brother, the Irish property was held by his nephew, James Stewart, 4^th Duke of Lennox (1612-1655).

Sir James Cunningham (1579-1623) of Glengarnock was the maternal grandfather of Penuel Cunningham, wife of Sir James Colquhoun, 19^th/21^st of Luss. He received two adjoining proportions of 1,000 acres each in the eastern part of parish Allsaints, designated the manors of Dacostrose and Portlough. Dacostrose included the townlands of Castruse, Garshooey, Altaghaderry, Toberslane, Kildrum, Gortinlieve, and Bogay Glebe. Portlough included the townlands of Portlough, Drumlogher, Corncammon, Gortlush, Leitrim, Monglass, and Tullyannan. Following James’s death, which occurred about 1623, most of his estate was sold off as freeholds to raise money: Drumlougher and Corncammon went to Alexander Cunningham of County Down, and most of the rest to Sir William Alexander and to his brother John Cunningham. In 1627, however, the King intervened and returned the lands by grant to Sir James’s widow, Katherine, as noted in the 1630 muster roll (Hill, pp. 507-508).

James Cunningham, Esq., sometimes styled “of Fowmilne” or “of Homill” in Scotland, was the uncle of, but likely about the same age as, Sir James Cunningham above. His son John Cunningham of Tully and Ballyachan married Ann, daughter of Sir James Cunningham of Glengarnock above (making husband and wife first cousins once removed). Therefore, both grandfathers of their daughter Penuel Cunningham (wife of Sir James Colquhoun, as mentioned above) were named James Cunningham. The Irish lands of James, Esq. were 1,000 acres designated the manor of Ballyaghan and located in parish Raymoghy along the eastern shore of Lough Swilly. It included the townlands of Balleeghan, Moneyhaughly, Drean, Maghera Beg, Maghera Mor, Tirharan, Errity, and Grawky Glebe, as well as the later village of Manorcunningham. James’s will (dated 7 May 1664, probate granted 11 Mar 1667) names eldest son John, son Robert, and daughters Giles and Frances.

The following Calhouns were listed on the muster rolls for the estates of the three Undertakers above:

Estate of Duke of Lennox: Humfrey Colquphone (sword only).
Estate of Duke of Lennox: Adam Quahone (no arms).
Estate of the widow of Sir James Conningham: James Calquahan (sword and pike).
Estate of the widow of Sir James Conningham: John McQuchowne (sword and pike).
Estate of James Conningham, Esq.: Andrew Callhown (no arms).

A list of tenants on the land of James Cunningham, Esq. dated 1 May 1613 appears on Hill p. 507. On it, neither Andrew nor any other Calhouns were listed, so Andrew most likely settled at a later date, sometime between 1617 and 1630. Andrew may or may not have been the Andrew of Drumatoland made denizen in 1617; for what it’s worth, Drumatoland was adjacent to the estate of Lennox, not that of James Cunningham, Esq. where Andrew of 1630 resided. The identities of the other Calhouns from this list have not been determined, but an examination of the Colquhouns living on their respective Undertakers’ lands in Scotland in the early 17^th century might be helpful in this regard.

Conspicuous in its absence from the list above is the estate of the laird of Luss himself, known as Corkagh, in which no Calhouns were listed. I will end this article here and pick up with Corkagh next time around. Stay well until then!

Update, December 28, 2023

After the initial publication of this article several weeks ago, I received a great deal of additional information from researcher Matthew Gilbert taken from the muster rolls and Ulster port records. Updates to the article include new sections on County Cavan and County Derry/Londonderry as well as a significant expansion of the discussion of County Antrim. I am greatly indebted to Matthew for sending this information my way!

Has anyone found additional records of Calhouns in Ireland prior to 1642 that I failed to mention? Or can anyone shed additional light on the identities and relationships of the Calhouns I mentioned above? If so, I’d love to hear from you!

*****

Thanks to John Grenham for kind permission to use and modify the map from his website, and once again, special thanks to Paul Calhoun for critical reading of this post and helpful edits.

*****

Posted on November 27, 2023April 17, 2024 by anton88887 · 5 Comments

Fact and Fiction About Adam, Nancy, and Robert Colquhoun

In my previous post, I traced the origin of the story and the pedigree purporting to connect the Colquhouns of Luss in Scotland with the Colhouns of Crosh in Ireland. To summarize, it originated as a hypothesis published by Charles Croslegh in 1904, then was expanded on by Orval Calhoun in 1976. With advances in information technology and increased availability of sources made since those authors’ times, we now have the ability to cross-check many pieces of this hypothesis. I began this process in the previous post by questioning what we can truly say about the inheritance of the Colquhouns’ Irish estate, Corkagh.

In this post, I will continue by examining many commonly held “facts” about the three central figures in this pedigree––Adam Colquhoun, his sister Nancy, and his supposed son, Robert––to assess what is likely to be true and what isn’t. The format I will use is to put the asserted “fact” in italics, followed by my assessment of whether it is substantiated by evidence in bold, followed by my comments on why. For the purposes of this post, the term “true” means that I personally believe it is substantiated by the evidence I have seen, and “false” means it is not. Of course, I encourage every reader to make up his or her own mind.

Adam Colquhoun

“Adam Colquhoun was a son of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss.” True. Alexander’s probate records, dated May 1617, name Adam as a son. In my earlier post about Adam, I discussed that Adam Colquhoun, son of Alexander of Luss, acquired the estate of Glens in Stirlingshire, married Giles MacFarlane in 1644, and died in 1655. There are primary source records to support these dates of marriage (namely, a muniment of Clan MacFarlane) and death (namely, Adam’s probate records).

“Adam Colquhoun was born about 1601.” False. As I elaborated in my earlier post about Alexander’s family, strong circumstantial evidence indicates that Adam was Alexander’s seventh and youngest son, and his tenth child overall. Given Alexander’s marriage in 1595 and a typical two-year spacing between children, Adam was more likely to have been born about 1612. The commonly-cited date of 1601 was probably suggested by Croslegh to squeeze several generations into a limited timeframe. For details see the earlier post.

“Adam Colquhoun inherited the Irish estate of Corkagh from his father.” False. In another post, I described how the Scottish probate laws at the time required that Corkagh pass to Alexander’s eldest son and successor, Sir John Colquhoun, 16^th/18^th of Luss. Documents bear out that Corkagh was in the possession of Sir John from the 1620s, and I will lay these out in an upcoming post about Corkagh.

“Adam Colquhoun married a daughter of Lindsay of Bonhill and had a daughter who married Thomas Buchanan of Carbeth.” False. Again, Adam married Giles MacFarlane in 1644. Is it possible that Miss Lindsay was an earlier wife? No. The idea that Adam married Miss Lindsay originated with a case of mistaken identity by Charles Croslegh in 1904. There were many men with the name Adam Colquhoun, and Croslegh mixed up two of them. Writing in 1723, William Buchanan of Auchmar stated that Thomas Buchanan, son of Thomas Buchanan, 3^rd of Carbeth, “married a Daughter of Adam Colchoun Merchant in Dumbartoun, said to be a Son of Luss’s, her Mother being Lindsay of Bonneil’s Daughter. He had by her Two Sons, John his Successor, and Walter.” (William Buchanan. A Historical and Genealogical Essay Upon the Family and Surname of Buchanan. Glasgow: William Duncan, 1723, p. 88.) However, when did this Adam live? John Guthrie Smith states,

Thomas Buchanan of Carbeth, by disposition dated 2^nd December 1614, sold the Temple lands of Letter to Sir William Livingstone of Kilsyth. He married Agnes Blair, and he and his spouse are parties to a contract, 3^rd March 1621…. Auchmar (p. 88) states that the last Thomas Buchanan of Carbeth married a daughter of Adam Colquhoun, merchant in Dunbarton. If this is correct, Agnes Blair must have been the second wife.
John Guthrie Smith. Strathendrick and Its Inhabitants from Early Times. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1896, p. 347.

Because Thomas Buchanan’s eldest son, John, was married in 1632, he was probably born about 1605, give or take a few years. Working backwards, that means that Thomas and his first wife (Adam’s daughter) were born about 1575, and his father-in-law, Adam Colquhoun, merchant of Dumbarton, was born around 1550, give or take a few years. This was 60 years before the birth of Adam son of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss. Clearly, the Adam Colquhoun who married Miss Lindsay and the Adam son of Alexander of Luss were two different people from two different generations.

Orval O. Calhoun goes one step further than Croslegh, calling Adam’s wife “Christian Lindsay.” This first name appears neither in Buchanan nor in Croslegh, so I suspect Orval mistook her for the Christian Lindsay, daughter of John Lindsay of Bonhill, who married John Colquhoun, 7^th of Camstradden (see Fraser vol. 2, p. 189). However, this Christian was born in the early years of the 1500s, about 100 years earlier than Adam’s wife would have been. There was also a 16^th century Scottish female poet named Christian Lindsay (fl. 1580-1620), but she was married to William Murray and had nothing to do with any Adam Colquhoun.

As far as evidence currently shows, Giles MacFarlane was Adam Colquhoun’s only wife.

“Adam Colquhoun was a merchant in Dumbarton, and an unsuccessful one.” False. The same case of mistaken identity that caused Croslegh to believe that Adam married Miss Lindsay also caused him to believe that Adam was a merchant. According to Buchanan of Auchmar, the Adam Colquhoun of an earlier generation who married Miss Lindsay was indeed a merchant. However, I have seen no document that describes the occupation of Adam the son of Alexander of Luss. Fraser notes a record stating, “In December 1634, Adam Colquhoun, brother to the Laird of Luss, was indebted to William Towart (Stewart) £42, 2s” (Fraser vol. 1, p. 235). Croslegh, perhaps taking this debt as evidence of poor business acumen, states, “The ownership of one thousand acres beyond the sea could not tempt the merchant of Dumbarton to give up his apparently not very successful business, in order to become a resident landlord in Ireland” (Croslegh, p. 214). Adam was not a merchant, but even if he had been, it would be a stretch to suggest that a single debt of £42 meant he was an unsuccessful businessman. Furthermore, as I noted above, Adam was not the owner of Corkagh, the 1,000-acre property in Ireland that Croslegh alludes to.

“Adam’s wife died in 1629.” False. As described above, Adam was not born until about 1612, and his only known marriage did not even occur until 1644. The idea that he had a wife who died young was probably invented by Croslegh to explain why Robert Colquhoun went to Ireland as a boy.

“Adam himself died in 1634.” False. His probate records tell us unambiguously that he died in 1655. The idea that Adam died in 1634 seems to have originated with Orval Calhoun, who states,

Records show that Robert’s father, Adam Colquhoun, brother of Sir John Colquhoun, BT, Laird of Luss, in Dec. of 1634, at the time of his death was indebted to William Stuart, Captain of Dumbarton Castle, for £42.2s. on account of Sir John Colquhoun encumbering the Estates. But this was cleared and paid off at the time, Adam’s WILL was probated in 1635….

[Adam’s wife died in 1629. It] is not recorded what caused her death at such an early age, but it sure left Adam Colquhoun, in quite a quandry [sic], with a store on his hands to operate and two very small children to raise and look after. Being that Adam was not a well man, health wise, he made his WILL and gave the Lands in Ireland to [his son] Robert in 1630, when Robert was only eight years of age. It was a good job that he did, for Adam died in December of 1634, a young man, with both health and financial troubles, as there are records to show this.
Orval O. Calhoun. OCF vol. 1, pp. 21 and 24.

Records do show that Adam incurred a debt in December 1634: as I stated above, Fraser notes that Adam was indebted to William Towart in December 1634 (Fraser vol. I, p. 235, in which he cites “Dumbarton Records, loose slips, vol. i”). However, Fraser does not state––nor is there any reason to infer––that this was at the time of Adam’s death or had anything to do with his brother encumbering Irish property.

Orval reiterates that there are “records to show” that Adam died in December 1634 amidst health and financial troubles. To be blunt, I have seen no such records. The “records” Orval mentions may be his own assertion that Adam left a will that was probated in 1635 and that bequeathed Irish land to a son named Robert. Adam’s actual probate records from 1655 do not include a will, and the inventory makes no mention either of Irish property or a son named Robert. I have considered the possibility that Orval could have mistaken some other probate record from 1635 for Adam’s will. However, the only probate record for a Colquhoun from 1635 on file with the National Records of Scotland, as per the indexes at ScotlandsPeople and elsewhere, belongs to John Colquhoun, 2^nd of Kenmure. The source of Orval’s claim is unknown, at least to me.

Nancy Colquhoun and John McAuselan

“Nancy Colquhoun was a daughter of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss.” True. We know this from Alexander’s will, dated May 1617.

“Nancy Colquhoun married John McAuselan, a younger son of the last Baron McAuselan, of Dunbartonshire.” Unknown, but probably false. We have no evidence as to who Nancy married, if anyone, so there is no way to gauge the truth of this statement. For what it’s worth, The Red Book of Scotland states that Nancy died unmarried. Why would anyone postulate a marriage between Nancy and a McAuselan in the first place? Croslegh mentioned an oral tradition in his family that stated the founder of his family, who he claimed to be Robert, was raised by an uncle named McAuselan. A surmised marriage between Nancy and John would have satisfied that claim.

“Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, sent his son-in-law and daughter John and Nancy McAuselan to Ireland to manage the Corkagh estate for him.” False. Nancy was probably born about 1604 and would have been about 13 when her father died. Even if she did eventually marry John McAuselan, it would probably not have been before 1624 and therefore not during her father’s lifetime. According to William Buchanan of Auchmar, “the greatest Number and of best Account of [McAuselans] reside in the Counties of Tyrone, Derry, and Down in the North of Ireland. The Ancestors of the principal Men of there last were Andrew, and John M’Auselans, Sons of the Baron M’Auselan, who went out of the Paroch of Luss to that Kingdom, in the latter Part of the Reign of King James VI” (Buchanan, p. 275). James VI/I ruled Scotland from 1603-1625, so it does appear that John McAuselan’s relocation to Ireland would have occurred in the early 1620s. Where in Ireland he went, and whether he was married to Nancy Colquhoun when he did so, are open questions.

In the list of Irish counties mentioned by Buchanan, Donegal is not included. Furthermore, a muster roll of able-bodied males on the Colquhouns’ Corkagh estate from 1630 mentions no one named McAuselan. That is not to say that John could not have been a freeholder at Corkagh either before or after 1630, but Buchanan’s failure to mention Donegal as a place of McAuselan settlement argues against this.

Robert Colquhoun

“A Robert Colquhoun was made denizen of Ireland in 1630.” True. Index entries to the letters patent of denization clarify him as follows: “1630, July 14. Robert Colqunhowne, Esq., a native of Scotland. (Patent Roll 6, Car. I., 1^st part, f. m. 25.).” This Robert was made an undertaker of “the small proportion of Corkagh” consisting of 1,000 acres. (James Morrin. Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland in the Reign of Charles the First. Dublin: Alexander Thom, 1863, p. 538.)

“The Robert Colquhoun made denizen was the son of Adam Colquhoun.” False. Adam Colquhoun did not marry until 1644, and his only known sons were named John and Alexander (sources: Adam’s probate records, and The Red Book of Scotland). Let’s say for the sake of argument that Adam also had an illegitimate son named Robert, born before his marriage to Giles, who went unrecorded. Even so, with Adam born about 1612, such a son would likely not have been born before 1632. Therefore, this son could not have been made denizen of Ireland in 1630, and he could not have been the father of William Colhoun of Newtownstewart, who was born about 1635.

“The Colhoun family of Crosh was founded by a man from Luss named Colquhoun who went to Ireland as a young boy, in the charge of an uncle named McCausland.” Unknown, but possibly true. As I outlined in the previous post, this comes strictly from oral tradition in the Crosh family, as related by Croslegh. There is probably at least a kernel of truth to this, and the fact that William Colhoun of Newtownstewart married a McCausland does support a connection between the two families in the 17^th century. This founder might have been William himself, but it was more likely his father, whose name is not stated on any primary source document. William was probably born about 1635, and his father (whatever his name was) was probably born around 1600-1605. (Actually, I now have my suspicions about who William’s father was, but you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for my next post!)

“The Robert Colquhoun made denizen of Ireland in 1630 was that founder.” Probably false. Having come across the denization record of Robert Colquhoun from 1630, Croslegh concluded that Robert was the founder of the Crosh family and the father of William of Newtownstewart. To make this hypothesis work, he proposed a birth year for Robert of about 1622, making him a boy in 1630. However, there is no reason to assume any of this, since many other scenarios are equally possible if not more likely. Worth noting is that the name Robert was not used for any known sons, grandsons, or great-grandsons of William Colhoun, which argues against William’s father having been named Robert.

So who was Robert colquhoun?

In the section above, I tried to establish that the “Robert Colqunhowne, Esq.” made denizen of Ireland in 1630 was not the grandson of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss and not the ancestor of the Colhoun family of Crosh, County Tyrone. So who was he? We know from the letter of denization that he was from Scotland, and since Undertakers came from the peerage and the gentry class, we need to look to the Scottish Colquhoun families from these classes––namely the Colquhoun of Luss family and its cadet branches––to identify him. The title “Esq.” was reserved for the eldest sons of peers and knights, but within those senior Colquhoun families, I cannot find a knight or baronet who would be a candidate for Robert’s father. Keep in mind, however, that the same index of letters patent where he was called “Robert Colqunhowne, Esq.” also referred to Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss as “Sir” and “knight”. Alexander was not in fact a knight, so I suggest that Robert’s title might have been similarly inflated.

By 1630, the name Robert had not been used in the Luss family for many generations. In fact, the only senior Colquhoun family where the name Robert was in common usage at that time was Colquhoun of Camstradden. Interestingly, two independent sources suggest that Robert was in fact from the Camstradden family. The first is Burke’s entry for “Colhoun of Carrickbaldoey”, which states,

By Patent dated 14 July, 1630, another member of the family, Robert Colquhowne (probably Robert Colquhoun, afterwards of Camstradden) was granted letters of denization together with Corkagh, which was then created the Manor of Corkagh, with the usual manorial rights.
Sir Bernard Burke. A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland. London: Harrison and Sons, 1912, p. 121.

The second source, interestingly enough, is noted by Croslegh himself in the following footnote:

The Venerable William Colquhoun, Archdeacon of Derry,––who tells me that he takes no personal interest in the history of the family,––has very kindly sent me a pedigree which makes the Irish branch to spring from “Robert Colquhoun of Comstroden, living in 1620.” I am unable to attach any importance to this document. It is impossible to reconcile it either with Fraser’s Monograph, or with the public annals of the nation. [Croslegh then enumerates several errors in the pedigree between the years 1120 and 1373.] It is unnecessary to examine this alleged descent more closely. I have not indeed gone into the history of the Camstradden branch. But the identification of any Robert of that line with our ancestor Robert, who received letters of denization in 1630, is negatived by all the evidence before me, whether of extant documents, or of uninterrupted and unvarying family tradition.
Croslegh, p. 211.

Croslegh is right in pointing out the errors in the very early part of the archdeacon’s pedigree. However, by using that as a reason to discard the more recent (and likely more reliable) parts of the pedigree, I think he was being overzealous. Ven. William Colquhoun (1842-1920) was from an Irish Colhoun family originating in parish Taughboyne, Co. Donegal, not from the Crosh family. Several years ago, I contacted William’s only surviving great-grandchild, but unfortunately he had no records of the family handed down from William. The fate of that pedigree is unknown, but it is possible that if research notes from Rev. Croslegh have survived, it might be among them.

I believe that the Robert Colquhoun made denizen of Ireland in 1630 was indeed from the Camstradden family, and in fact was the Robert Colquhoun (ca. 1588-1669) who in 1642 became 10^th laird of Camstradden. This Robert was a close associate of the Luss family and likely a personal friend of Alexander, 15^th/17^th of Luss and of his son, Sir John. Robert’s father, John Colquhoun, 9^th of Camstradden, was witness to the will of laird Alexander in 1617. In 1612, Robert, then fiar (heir-apparent to the laird) of Camstradden, received a charter from Alexander to the lands of Auchengavin, perhaps as a wedding present (Fraser vol. 2, p. 201). Robert was also the man who in 1653 paid off the mortgage of the lands of Aldochlay to Adam Colquhoun of Glens, son of Alexander (Fraser vol. 2, p. 202). In 1662, Robert served as bailie of barony to Alexander’s grandson Sir John Colquhoun, 17^th/19^th of Luss (Fraser vol. 2, p. 202). Taken together, this suggests that several generations of the Luss family had placed their trust in this Robert.

I do not know exactly why Robert Colquhoun of Camstradden should have been made Undertaker of Corkagh, a property that both before and after 1630 was clearly under the ownership of Sir John Colquhoun, 16^th/18^th of Luss. However, in 1630 Sir John was engaged in the purchase of several new Scottish lands from John Colquhoun of Kilmardinny “for great sums of money” (Fraser vol. 1, p. 248). Therefore, I speculate that Sir John temporarily sold Corkagh to Robert, a trusted family friend and associate, as a means of raising funds, keeping open the option of reclaiming Corkagh at a future date, which he seems to have done.

The commonly-cited pedigree linking the Colquhouns of Luss with the Colhouns of Crosh. This is the same figure shown in my previous post, but with relationships I have shown here to be problematic now marked in red.

This is how I would revise the figure based on the evidence I have presented here. Note there is no longer a link between the Colquhoun of Luss family and the Colhoun family of Crosh in Ireland. Rather, they are presented as two separate pedigrees. Not shown is Robert Colquhoun, 10^th of Camstradden, who was not closely related to the Luss family or, as far as known, to the Crosh family.

Summary

In my assessment, most of what is commonly believed about Adam, Nancy, and Robert Colquhoun is not true. Again, many of these beliefs originated with the hypothetical connection between Luss and Crosh proposed by Croslegh in 1904. This connection was not an entirely unreasonable assumption on Croslegh’s part: since Robert Colquhoun held title to Corkagh in 1630, and since Corkagh was the Irish manor previously granted to Alexander, 15^th/17^th of Luss, Croslegh assumed that this Robert must have been an heir and therefore a direct descendant of Alexander. Unfortunately, this does not seem to have been the case. (Worth noting here is that George Hill made the same mistaken assumption on p. 511 of his work, An Historical Account of the Plantation of Ulster, where he states without evidence, “On the 14th of July, 1630, letters patent of denization were issued to Robert Colqunhowne, son of Sir John….”)

As far as I can tell, neither Adam Colquhoun of Glens (originally of Luss) nor Robert Colquhoun of Camstradden (made denizen of Ireland in 1630) left descendants in Ireland. Robert became 10^th laird of Camstradden in 1642, so if he lived in Ireland at all, he had returned to Scotland by 1642, and it appears that his children lived in Scotland as well (see Fraser vol. 2, pp. 202-204). The parentage of William Colhoun of Newtownstewart, and therefore the origin of the Colhoun family of Crosh, therefore remains unknown. However, if we are at long last willing to part with Croslegh’s story, the way will be clear for us to look for the truth. With some luck, we may find it.

*****

Once again, I express my gratitude to Paul Calhoun and to a second reader for critical reading of this post and helpful edits.

*****

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Posted on November 10, 2023 by anton88887

The “Luss-Crosh Link” and the Story Behind It

The most commonly cited link between the Colquhouns of Scotland and the Colhouns of Ireland spans five generations, from Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, Scotland to Rev. Alexander Colhoun of Crosh, County Tyrone, Ireland. This five-generation pedigree, and the narrative behind it, has found its way into thousands of Calhoun family trees and written histories, both online and in print. In my own words, I summarize the story told as follows.

“Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, acquired the estate of Corkagh in Co. Donegal, Ireland in the 1610s. Instead of residing there himself, he designated his son-in-law John McAuselan, husband of his daughter Nancy, to live on and manage the estate as his personal representative. However, when Alexander died in 1617, rather than give Corkagh to John and Nancy, he instead bequeathed it to his son Adam, a merchant in Dumbarton. Like his father, Adam also decided not to relocate to Ireland. Upon the death of his wife in 1629, Adam sent his seven-year-old son Robert to reside there in his stead. Adam died in 1634, after which Robert inherited Corkagh. In 1641, Robert married his first cousin Catherine McAuselan, daughter of John and Nancy. They had several children including a son William. In 1651, at the age of eight, William inherited yet another Irish estate, Crosh House in Co. Tyrone, from Sir William Stewart, Baronet, apparently some kind of relative. A stipulation of the inheritance was that William live there, and so the boy relocated from Corkagh to Crosh, where he was raised by Alexander McCausland and his wife, who were relatives of his mother’s. William later married their daughter Catherine McCausland and had several children, including son Alexander, later Rev. Alexander Colhoun.”

This story has been part of Calhoun family lore for more than a hundred years, and many people have come to rely on it for determining their own ancestry. However, if we are interested in getting as close to the truth of the historical record as we can (and why wouldn’t we be?), then every piece of received wisdom, no matter how old, is worth re-examining from time to time. After all, the digitization of records has brought to light many sources that may not have been easily accessible to researchers a hundred years ago, or even forty years ago. So getting back to this particular story, how true is it, or more accurately, how much of it is true? Based on my interpretation of the evidence, the short answer is (spoiler alert!), “not much.” I will analyze the specific elements of the story in the next post, but in this post, I would like to discuss how the story as a whole came to be.

The commonly-cited pedigree linking the Colquhouns of Luss with the Colhouns of Crosh. Additional details on the McCausland family added by me based on McCausland research.

From Oral Tradition to Croslegh

The core elements of this story originated with Charles Croslegh who first published it in his book on the family in 1904. Croslegh’s roots ran through the Colhoun family of Crosh, and like many Calhouns, he was curious as to how his family was connected to the senior Colquhoun family of Luss, Scotland. He says the following:

In the case of the [Colhoun] family I may claim credit for having established the historical connection between the Scotch and the Irish Colquhouns. The Irish branch had always retained the tradition, but it had lost all documentary record of its descent from the old Chiefs of Colquhoun. It knew that its first ancestor in Ireland, Robert Colquhoun, had come from Luss, as a child, under the charge of his uncle MacCausland. But how that child was linked to the Lairds of Luss on the one hand, or to the Colquhouns in Ireland on the other, it did not know. I have recovered that lost record. I do not mean that I have discovered documents which would be received in a court of law as unshakeable evidence to prove the descent at every step. But I have found testimony, (resting all along on trustworthy written or printed statements), sufficient, I think, to remove all reasonable doubt as to the general correctness of my deductions.
Croslegh, p. x.

I have to disagree with Croslegh here: I believe there is plenty of room for reasonable doubt. Croslegh performed his research 120 years ago, and it is a fact that there were sources available to him at that time that have not survived to the present day. So are there things that he knew that we don’t? Probably not: he did an excellent job of citing the documents and personal communications he relied on, and there is relatively little in his list of references that is not also available to us. On the other hand, the internet, digitization of books and records, and modern-day travel permit us access to sources that were not available to him. Therefore, we can examine his story not only in light of the sources he used to construct it, but also in light of additional sources he may not have been aware of.

Croslegh’s “story,” as I have called it, is in fact a hypothesis he built to explain the origin of his Irish Colhoun family in light of the documentary and oral sources he had to work with. He says, “it is interesting to see how the chaos of apparently impossible dates and contradictory statements soon begins to grow, under careful attention, into an orderly and consistent story” (Croslegh, pp. 211-212). In other words, he took discontinuous data and filled in the gaps with estimated dates and surmised relationships where necessary in order to create a continuous narrative. There is nothing wrong with doing this, as building hypotheses is a necessary part of the process of discovery. However, equally necessary to the process is the critical examination of hypotheses to determine which parts hold up and which do not. Let us consider the two streams of evidence Croslegh used: the oral tradition handed down in his family, and the set of documents he cites.

Croslegh mentions an oral tradition passed down through “the Irish branch” of the Calhouns, by which I presume he meant specifically his own family, the Colhouns of Crosh, County Tyrone. According to Croslegh’s preface (quoted above), this tradition stated that (1) the Colhouns of Crosh believed they were somehow descended from the old Chiefs of Colquhoun in Scotland (i.e., the Luss family), and (2) the first of the Crosh ancestors to come to Ireland was a Colquhoun perhaps named Robert, born somewhere near Luss, who came to Ireland when still a young boy as the ward of an uncle named McCausland. Because this tradition was more than 200 years old by the time Croslegh wrote it down, it is possible and even likely that errors had crept into it through repeated retelling. Furthermore, we have only Croslegh’s version of the story, so we can’t know which parts might have been his own additions. Nonetheless, such traditions often contain at the very least a kernel of truth, and we have to respect this possibility.

Croslegh also mentions his reliance on “trustworthy written or printed statements.” As far as I can tell, these statements include not much more than the following, at least among those he cites specifically in his endnotes:

Fraser’s discussion of the Battle of Glen Fruin. (Endnote 12; from Fraser vol. 1, chapter XIV.)
Fraser’s transcription of the will of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, specifically the statement about Adam and the Irish lands. (Endnote 17; from Fraser vol. 1, p. 231.)
Statements that Adam Colquhoun married a daughter of Lindsay of Bonneil and that John McAuselan went to Ireland. (Endnote 16; from William Buchanan of Auchmar. A Historical and Genealogical Essay upon the Family and Surname of Buchanan. Glasgow: William Duncan, 1723, pp. 88; 122-123.)
General residency requirements for all undertakers to the Plantation of Ulster. (Endnote 17; from George Hill. An Historical Account of the Plantation in Ulster at the Commencement of the Seventeenth Century, 1608-1620. Belfast: M’Kaw, Stevenson, and Orr, 1877, pp. 80-83.)
Pynnar’s Survey of the Ulster Plantation from 1619, entry for Corkagh. (Endnote 17; from Hill, pp. 511-512.)
Instructions to the Lord Deputy of Ireland regarding denization and inheritance. (Endnote 17; from Sir Richard Cox. Hibernia anglicana, or, The history of Ireland…, p. 51.)
Letter Patent of Denization for Robert Colquhoun of Corkagh, 1630. (Endnote 17; from James Morrin. Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland of the Reign of Charles the First, vol. III. Dublin: Alexander Thom, 1863, pp. 538-539.)

These documents may be trustworthy and provide important information (like the identities of laird Alexander’s children and his family’s ownership of Corkagh), but upon close examination, many of them prove to be of a general historical nature, and those that do refer to Calhouns don’t speak to the other specific relationships he proposes.

Given the oral tradition and the set of documents above, one might imagine that Croslegh came up with the hypothesis that he did using the following reasoning. He was aware that his ancestor Rev. Alexander Colhoun was born around 1663 and was the son of William Colhoun of Newtownstewart. The oral tradition within his family stated that the first of them to come to Ireland was a Robert Colquhoun, who arrived from Scotland at a very young age, to be raised by an uncle named McCausland. Therefore, he reasoned, this Robert must have been the father of William. The tradition also stated that Robert had come from Luss and that the family had somehow descended “from the old Chiefs of Colquhoun.” This is a vague statement, but Croslegh took it literally to mean that Robert must have been the son or grandson of one of the lairds of Luss. He then searched Fraser’s work to see where such a connection might be made.

In Fraser’s book, Croslegh came across two “loose ends” among the children of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss: a son Adam, who Croslegh believed inherited Alexander’s Irish estate at Corkagh, and a daughter Nancy, whose husband Fraser could not identify. Adam’s connection to Ireland via Alexander’s will, and the fact that Robert physically went to Ireland, suggested to him that Adam must have been the father of Robert. Why would Robert go to Ireland as a young boy in the company of an uncle and not his parents? Perhaps it was because his mother had recently died, and his father could not care for him. Who was this mother? In Buchanan of Auchmar’s book, Croslegh found reference to an Adam Colquhoun, merchant of Dumbarton, who married a daughter of Lindsey of Bonneil and had a daughter named Helen. He figured this was the same Adam mentioned in the will of Alexander of Luss and that, in addition to daughter Helen, Adam must have had a son Robert whom Buchanan neglected to mention. Buchanan also mentioned a John McAuselan who went to Ireland in the last days of the reign of James VI/I, and so Croslegh reasoned that John must have been the uncle of his Robert and therefore the husband of one of Adam’s sisters, probably Nancy.

Croslegh was constrained by the birth of Rev. Alexander Colhoun in 1663 (which he probably knew from Trinity College records) and the marriage of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss in late 1595 (known from Fraser and references therein). Between these two dates, he had to squeeze in the births of three other generations, and so he estimated the following birthdates to make it work: Adam Colquhoun ca. 1601, Adam’s supposed son Robert ca. 1622, and Robert’s supposed son William ca. 1643. This was a very tight fit: most men from the Scottish gentry did not marry until their mid-20s at the very earliest, but Croslegh’s timeline required three successive generations of men to marry at ages 19-21. Again, these birth dates do not appear in any of the written sources he cites, and because he does such a good job of referencing, it seems unlikely that they came from uncited sources but rather were his own estimates.

If you have read my previous three blog posts, you already know that I believe that Adam was not born until about 1612, that Adam did not inherit Corkagh, that he did not have a son named Robert and in fact was not even married until 1644, and that if Nancy married at all, she did not marry John McAuselan, at least not before her father died in 1617. If I convinced you of the truth of even a single one of these statements, Croslegh’s hypothesis falls apart.

From Croslegh to Orval

Croslegh’s hypothesis was expanded 70 years later by Orval Calhoun in his book series Our Calhoun Family (OCF). As many have pointed out, Orval was not as diligent as Croslegh in referencing his sources, in part because he relied heavily on information sent to him by other family members from around the world. Although we do not know what sources were or were not available to him, we must use the sources now available to us to cross-check his statements as best we can. To do so, we must first identify statements that are Orval’s and not also Croslegh’s––in other words, statements in OCF that were not also present in Croslegh’s earlier work. For example, Croslegh says the following:

That the Laird of Luss should exchange the bonny banks of Loch Lomond for the wilds of Donegal was out of the question. He fulfilled the condition of residence by deputy. He sent his son-in-law, John MacAuselan or MacCausland, a younger son of the last Baron MacAuselan who was then living in the parish of Luss, to Ireland, to live on the estate, and to manage it. He also made certain arrangements, the precise nature of which does not appear, concerning this newly acquired property. But whatever these arrangements may have been, he cancelled them by his last will….
Croslegh p. 213-4.

If these “certain arrangements” that Alexander supposedly made regarding the Corkagh estate “do not appear”, how did Croslegh know about them? Fraser, who unlike Croslegh actually worked from the documents at Rossdhu, did not mention anything about this, so I tend to believe this was speculation on Croslegh’s part, although again, we cannot know for sure. Orval tells the same story as follows, with the underlined portions being new elements that he added:

The Laird of Luss, had no desire to exchange the Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond, for the wilds of Donegal. That is how it became possible for him to place his daughter, Nancy & her husband John McAuselan (Younger son of the last Baron McAuselan) to live on the land in Ireland, to develop it according to the directions of the Crown. They had proceeded with these instructions according to schedule and received the O.K. from the Royal Commission on each of the Surveys that were conducted about every two years, so that Nancy & John were still living on the Irish Lands, when Sir Alexander died on May 23rd 1617, but they did not inherit Manor Corkagh from her father at his death, like an earlier WILL had stated they would, as Sir Alexander Colquhoun had made some previous arrangement for this estate with John & Nancy. But for some unknown reason he cancelled them by his last WILL….

Regardless of the disappointment on not inheriting Corkagh, Nancy and John McAuselan, continued living at Corkagh, & managing it for Adam Colquhoun, her brother, who had inherited it. Sir John realizing what expenses Adam would be up against at Corkagh, agreed upon a sufficient provision for his brother Adam, to maintain the Estate.
OCF vol. 1, p. 20.

As a first new story element, he mentions biannual surveys that apparently mention Nancy and John McAuselan living at Corkagh before and after 1617. Indeed, four Plantation surveys were conducted between 1611 and 1622, but at best, they simply recorded the number of tenants on each proportion of Irish land, not the names. I have been able to find no surveys, nor any other document, stating that John and/or Nancy McAuselan either lived at Corkagh or were associated with the property in any way. The earliest record of anyone of that surname I have found living there is a Patrick McCausland recorded in the townland of Corkey in the Hearth Money Rolls of 1665.

Second, Orval states that the “certain arrangements” made for Corkagh, which Croslegh provided no evidence for and told us were unrecorded, were in fact detailed in an earlier draft of Alexander’s will. Neither Fraser nor Croslegh described such a document, and only one version of the will is currently deposited at the National Records of Scotland. If in fact no such earlier draft of the will exists, as I believe to be the case, this statement most likely arose from a misunderstanding of Croslegh’s use of the phrase “last will” (meant as in “last will and testament” and not “last of several wills”).

Finally, he states that the provision that Sir John Colquhoun made for his brother Adam was intended to maintain the estate of Corkagh. Not so. Sir John was obligated by his father’s will to provide for each of his younger siblings as they came of age, essentially giving each of them the share of inheritance they were owed. As I mentioned in a previous post, Fraser notes that around 1631, when Adam was about 19, “Sir John agreed upon a sufficient provision for his brother Adam” (Fraser p. 248). The details of this provision have not survived, so there is no evidence that it was for the purpose of maintaining Corkagh. Since we know for certain that Adam acquired the estate of Glens in Stirlingshire, the provisions more likely had to do with arranging money for the purchase or long-term lease of Glens, but even this is not known for certain.

I have summarized how I believe the well-known story about the relationship between the Colhouns of Crosh in Ireland and the Colquhouns of Luss in Scotland came into being. I recognize that there may have been sources known to Croslegh in 1904 and Orval in 1976 that I am not aware of, but I believe the story as we know it today is largely the product of their work and not from pre-existing sources. In the next post, I will go into more specifics of what I believe is true, false, and unknown concerning Adam, Nancy, and Robert Colquhoun, so stay tuned!

Do you disagree with me based on your own research? For example, have you seen the mysterious early draft of Alexander’s will, or tenant lists showing the McAuselans at Corkagh, or the details of any provisions made by Sir John to Adam Colquhoun? If so, I’d love to see them for myself!

*****

I am greatly indebted to Paul Calhoun and to a second reader (you know who you are!) for critical reading of this post and helpful edits. I believe this article was much improved thanks to their efforts.

*****

Posted on October 17, 2023October 20, 2023 by anton88887 · 3 Comments

The Probate Records of Alexander Colquhoun, 15th/17th of Luss

Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, who died in 1617, left a substantial probate file, some 17 handwritten pages long. The record is of immense genealogical value, and it provides much more than just a list of his children. As Alexander was able to leave a will, the probate is considered a testament testamentar, which contains an introductory clause, an inventory of possessions, a confirmation clause (i.e., a validation of the inventory by the court for the benefit of the executors), and the will itself. The document on file in the National Records of Scotland (and digitized at ScotlandsPeople) is written in “secretary hand,” an old form of cursive that can be challenging for anyone not trained to read it. To make matters worse, the 17^th century dialect in which it was written uses archaic Scots spellings, vocabulary, and legalese unfamiliar to many of us.

William N. Fraser, a trained legal scholar, transcribed the will, which appears in volume 1 of his work, pp. 230-232. However, the will forms only the last two of the seventeen pages in the file, and the remainder (primarily the inventory) has not been transcribed or even, to my knowledge, investigated, although I am hoping that will soon change.

Handwritten copy of the beginning of Alexander’s will. For comparison with Fraser’s transcription, the part of the will in the image begins, “Att Rosdo, the sextein and sevintein dayes of Maij, the zeir of God…” and ends, “… Johne Colquhoun, portioner of Mylntoun, dispone his assignation of fortie….” The red slashes mark the position of an apparently missing section (see below).

Scottish probate in the 17^th century categorized property into two types. Heritable property included land, buildings, ownership rights, and other fixed things. Heritable property was not typically dealt with in wills, since by the rules of Scottish succession, all heritable property was automatically inherited by the eldest son by right. Movable property included goods, money, livestock, and other things that could be moved. Movable property was divided into three equal shares: the widow’s part, the children’s part, and the dead’s part. (It would be two equal shares if the spouse was not living.) As with heritable property, the widow’s part and children’s part were determined and distributed automatically by right. All children shared equally in the children’s part except for the eldest son, who did not participate because he received the heritable property. The only part of the estate that the deceased could specify in the will was the dead’s part of the movable property, which could be bequeathed to the spouse or to any of the children (over and above their by-right share of the estate), or to anyone else such as extended family, friends, and associates. Because the spouse and children were dealt with automatically, it was often the case that they were not named in a will, with the dead’s part going to others outside the immediate family.

Provisions of Alexander’s Will

Fortunately, Alexander’s children were named in his will, since all except the oldest son, John, were designated as co-executors, and special provisions were made for several of them, including John. This is not surprising, since Alexander took care to put all of his children on firm financial footing from very early ages. In 1602, at age about 6, son John received liferent income from the Kirk of Luss and chaplainry of Rossdhu, and a charter from King James VI/I of the lands of Auchintorly and Dunnerbuck (Fraser vol. 1, pp. 239-240). In 1607, at age about 5, son Alexander acquired land rights and rental income (Fraser vol. 1, p. 234). In 1617, at age about 11, son George acquired rights to a debt owed by Thomas Fallasdaill through actions taken by his father shortly before his death (Fraser vol. 1, p. 235). At an unknown date before 1617, son Patrick (probably 6 years old or less) acquired a mortgage on property at Aldochlay, worth 200 merks, taken out by the Colquhouns of Camstradden; upon Patrick’s death, it was transferred to his brother Adam (Fraser vol. 2, p. 202). These are just those cases for which Fraser found documentation.

The will transcription can be found in Fraser volume 1, so I will not repeat it here. However, I can summarize it as follows. First, Alexander names all his sons and daughters except John as his executors and representatives with respect to his movable property. Second, he gives to daughter Jean whatever silver and gold are in his chest, over and above what she received by right, and that she could redeem her rightful share to brother John in exchange for £10,000 as dowry. Third, eldest son John, likely the only child of age at that time, was designated “helper and consenter” to his father’s will, and as fiar of Luss, he promised, in the presence of the witnesses, “to perform and do my father’s will in the whole premise above-written, and further to the will of my brothers and sisters, as best I can.” At the time of Alexander’s death, most of the children were much too young to manage their own shares of the inheritance. Perhaps because of John’s own relative youth and potential conflicts of interest, Alexander designated Rev. Andrew Boyd, Bishop of Argyll, and the laird of Buchanan (probably a close relative of his wife’s) as co-guardians of the younger children “with power to settle various matters in regard to the provision which Sir John should make for them.” Sir John made his provisions for each sibling as they came of age, in consultation with Boyd and Buchanan.

Other stipulations in the will were that (1) youngest son Adam was to receive something related to the Irish property, and (2) second son Humphrey was to receive money through various means to help purchase the estate of Balvie for his exclusive use. (Note the bequest to Humphrey was in the form of money [movable] and not of property owned by Alexander [which would have been heritable and therefore disallowed].) Witnesses to the will were John Colquhoun of Camstradden, Mr. Archibald Cameron of Inchcailloch in Loch Lomond, John Colquhoun of Milton (Barnhill), and John Buntein of Ardoch.

There is also an extensive supplement to the will, including the following bequests, most to be paid at the next St. Martin’s Day (11 November).

To Thomas Falasdaill, 1,000 merks.
To John Colquhoun of Camstradden, 1,000 merks.
To Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick, 1,000 merks.
To John Colquhoun of Milton, 500 merks “in consideration of his part of the hardship of Colquhoun,” i.e., his help in the Battle of Glen Fruin.
To Patrick Colquhoun of Milton, 500 merks, also for his help at Glen Fruin.
To Andrew Colquhoun and Beatrix Colquhoun, both servants of Patrick above, 500 merks and £100, respectively.
Mr. Archibald Cameron’s debt of £100 to be discharged, as a token of goodwill.
To James Colquhoun, 500 merks.

Witnesses to this addendum were Thomas Fallasdaill of Ardochbeg, Mr. John Campbell, minister of Luss, James Colquhoun at Port of Rossdhu, John Colquhoun “his eldest sone” (it is unclear to me whether this was James’s son or Alexander’s own son), and Duncan McInturnour of Tor.

The beneficiaries and witnesses to the will who were from outside of Alexander’s immediate family are important to recognize, since they were clearly close friends and associates of the laird of Luss in 1617. As such, they are candidates for people who might have settled as freeholders on the laird’s recently acquired property in Ireland. I will deal with them further in a future post.

A Break in the Will

In Fraser’s transcription, he notes a mid-sentence break in the original will, about which he says, “A portion is here evidently omitted.” This break occurs at a crucial point in the text: “Lykas, he ordanes his eldest sone Johne, Mr. Andro Boyd, Bischop of Argyle, the Laird of Buchanan, …. …. His will is, that notwithstanding quhatsumever provisioun is anent the Ireland landis, that Adame haif the same.” This apparently omitted portion (the two ellipses in this quote) I have marked with two red slashes in the image of the handwritten copy above. Note there is no physical break in the paper, no ink stain, and no acknowledgment on the part of the transcriber that anything is missing. It is possible that this is in fact a transcription or memorial of an original copy where there is such a physical break, but there is no way to know.

In any case, the missing portion probably included details of how his eldest son John was to make provisions for his younger siblings, as he began to describe just before the break; Fraser makes some attempt to address this in his book (vol. 1, p. 248). Right after the break is some provision to be made for youngest son Adam regarding the recently acquired Irish estate. It seems likely that the missing portion would have included equivalent provisions for the middle sons, Alexander, George, and Walter, since there is no reason to think they should have been neglected.

It is also likely that the missing portion included some further details about the Irish estate vis-à-vis Adam. The surviving sentence on this topic has often been interpreted as Alexander bequeathing the estate of Corkagh to Adam. However, this is probably incorrect, since by Scottish inheritance law, Corkagh would have been considered heritable property and passed by right to the eldest son, Sir John. This appears to be what happened, since later documents show Corkagh in the possession of Sir John, with Adam’s name never mentioned. This sentence must instead mean that Alexander made some provision whereby a certain portion of income derived from the Irish lands was to go to Adam, given as part of the “dead’s part” of his movable property.

There is an interesting twist to this. Alexander was a Scottish citizen, and prior to 1707, England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. As England was in control of Ireland, for Scots to buy and sell property in Ireland, they needed to obtain letters patent of denization. This granted them the status of “English denizens of Ireland,” an intermediate status between citizen and alien. Alexander obtained his letter of denization from King James VI/I on 20 May 1617, just three days before his death. (He is called in the patent roll, “Sir Alexander Colquhon [sic], of Corkagh, in Co. Donegal, Kn’t,” although he was not in fact a knight, as I mentioned previously.) This may have been done to make his acquisition of Corkagh retroactively legal.

As I understand it, denizens could buy and sell Irish property, but they could not inherit property (see here). Oddly enough, however, it seems that they could still bequeath property to non-denizen heirs. Among the instructions to the Lord Deputy of Ireland and Council promulgated on 24 May 1629 was the stipulation that “All Scotishmen, Undertakers in Ulster, and in other Places there, ar to be made Free Denizens of that Our Kingdom; and no Advantage for want of Denization to be taken against the Heirs or Assigns of those that be dead.” (Sir Richard Cox. Hibernia Anglicana, or, The History of Ireland, from the Conquest Thereof by the English, to This Present Time…., p. 51.) I take this to mean that the heirs of denizens, whether denizens themselves or not, could inherit property from denizens who are deceased. This explains why Corkagh was subsequently in possession of Sir John, for whom no letter patent of denization has been found. I invite help with this interpretation from any expert in old Scottish probate law.

As I mentioned above, I intend to deal further with the topic of Corkagh in a future post.

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Posted on September 7, 2023September 7, 2023 by anton88887 · 17 Comments

We Didn’t Know Adam from Adam

So, I had my next few blog posts all set to go. I had written two about Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss and his family, and then three more about the oft-repeated pedigree that connects the Colquhouns of Luss in Scotland with the Colhouns of Crosh in Ireland. This pedigree runs through Alexander’s son Adam, meaning that Adam appears in the family trees of hundreds if not thousands of people descended from Irish Calhouns. The gist of what I was going to say in my upcoming posts is that I think the whole story about Adam being born in 1601, inheriting the Luss family’s estate in Co. Donegal, Ireland, being widowed at a young age, sending a son named Robert over to Ireland to manage the estate for him while he remained an unsuccessful merchant in Dumbarton, and then dying himself in 1635, is wrong. Not only is the story in its entirety wrong, but each one of those statements individually is incorrect. (I still think this, and I’ll give the details in these future posts.) What I was going to propose in place of this story is that Adam did not inherit the Irish estate, but that he did eventually go and live there, since the Irish Hearth Money Rolls show an Adam Colhoun Sr. living at Corkagh, the family’s estate in Co. Donegal, in 1665. Must be him, right? As it turns out, I have to completely revise those upcoming articles, since I have now discovered that this proposal I was going to make is also wrong!

As I was wrapping up some background research on Robert Colquhoun, 10^th of Camstradden, I ran across the following passage in Fraser vol. 2 that stopped me in my tracks:

John Colquhoun of Camstradden, the father of Robert, had impignorated and wadset his lands of Aldochlay, on having received in loan the sum of 200 merks Scots, from Alexander Colquhoun of Luss, who gave the same for the behoof of his son Patrick. On the death of the said Patrick, his brother-german, Adam Colquhoun of Glens was lawfully retoured and infefted as Patrick’s heir, in the foresaid lands, during the non-redemption thereof. On 11^th February 1653, Robert Colquhoun of Camstradden, and Alexander, his eldest son and heir, having made payment of the said 300 [sic] merks, received from Adam Colquhoun of Glens, son of the deceased Alexander Colquhoun of Luss, a discharge and renunciation of all right to the lands of Aldochlay.
Fraser vol. 2, p. 202, referencing “Original Discharge and Renunciation in Camstradden Charter-chest.”

There are several archaic Scots legal terms in there, but as best I can interpret it, it means the following. John Colquhoun, 9^th of Camstradden, evidently in need of cash, mortgaged his property at Aldochlay (a hamlet on Loch Lomond just south of Camstradden) for 200 merks, with Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss serving as lender. Alexander gave the note over to his young son Patrick for Patrick’s financial benefit when the loan was paid off. Patrick apparently died young, after which the note passed to his brother Adam. In 1653, a generation later, the loan was finally paid off by John’s son Robert, 10^th of Camstradden, upon which Adam (by then known as Adam Colquhoun of Glens) discharged the mortgage.

I’m not sure how this passage could have escaped the notice of everyone from Croslegh’s time onward—a span of some 125 years—but as far as I can tell, it did. It even seems to have escaped the notice of Fraser himself, since he makes no note of the mortgaging of Aldochlay in his discussion of Alexander and Adam in volume 1 of his work. Perhaps he was unaware of it at the time he wrote volume 1 and did not amend the draft of that volume when he later discovered the document. Fraser also did not make mention of Adam’s fate several years after the books’ publication when Croslegh inquired about the Irish property. Croslegh states,

I wrote to Sir William Fraser, some twenty years ago [ca. 1884], to ask whether he had met with anything among the Ross-dhu papers which could serve to throw light upon the settlement of the family in Ireland. His reply was, that he had found nothing which in any way pointed to Ireland. When I drew his attention to Alexander Colquhoun’s devise of the Irish lands to his son Adam, he admitted that it had escaped his notice.
Croslegh, p. 211.

So it seems that Adam became a landowner residing on the estate of Glens, a position more befitting the station of a son of Luss than small-time merchant. Glens (also spelled Glennes, Glennis, Glinnes, Glinnis, Glyns, etc.) was located in the parish of Balfron, Stirlingshire, which was due east of Loch Lomond and north of Glasgow. The first Colquhoun styled “of Glens” was Patrick, younger brother of Sir John Colquhoun, 8^th/10^th of Luss (d. 1439). This Patrick was the ancestor of two cadet branches of the family: the Colquhouns of Glens and the Colquhouns of Kenmure. The Colquhoun of Glens family that Patrick founded lasted only four generations: Patrick’s great-grandson George Colquhoun of Glens had only a daughter, Margaret, who in 1535 married her cousin Robert Boyd, after which the Colquhoun line ended and the property passed into the Boyd family. Adam Colquhoun, son of Alexander of Luss, was styled “of Glens” roughly 100 years later, and how exactly the Glens estate returned to Colquhoun ownership is not known to me.

Pedigree showing the relationship of the various Colquhouns of Glens (or Glinnis) to the Colquhouns of Luss and Kenmure. Adapted from Fraser vol. 1 pp. xxiv-xxv, Fraser vol. 2 p. 260, and a previous post to this blog.

Knowing that Alexander’s son Adam was styled “of Glens” enables us to learn the details of his marriage and death. In or about October 1644, Adam Colquhoun of Glens married Giles MacFarlane, daughter of Walter MacFarlane of Arrochar. Their marriage contract, drawn up at Luss on 10 September 1644, states that Giles brought a dowry including property at Craigend and Dalhilloch, which like Glens were located in parish Balfron, as well as 4,900 Scottish merks.

Signatures of Adam Colquhoun of Glens and his wife Giles MacFarlane, from their marriage contract. (Source: muniments of Clan MacFarlane Worldwide, Inc.)

Probate records of “Adame Colquhoune of Glennis” show he died in March 1655. As I will detail in the next post, I believe Adam was born about 1612 or 1613, making him about 32 when he was married and 43 when he died. Perhaps because he died young, his probate file does not include a will; rather it is a testament dative, which essentially just names executors and provides an inventory or valuation of possessions. Unfortunately, I am not adept enough with old Scottish secretary hand to read the document in its entirety, but other names in the record that I can make out include Archibald Colquhoun of Kirkton (parish of Old Kilpatrick), James Galbraith, James Lockhart of Glens, John Koy of Craigend, Robert Koy, James Koy, Andrew Colquhoun of Garscube, Donald Mitchell, James Porter, Adam’s father-in-law Walter MacFarlane of Arrochar, John MacFarlane fiar of Arrochar, Adam’s nephew Sir John Colquhoun of Luss, Walter Colquhoun, and Jonet Colquhoun.

In addition, there is mention of a “second son” Alexander Colquhoun, so it appears that Adam did have children, at least two of whom were sons. I suspect the eldest son might have been named Walter Colquhoun, after his father-in-law, but I don’t know for sure. I have not yet found any later Colquhouns styled “of Glens”, so further research is needed to figure out who Adam’s descendants might have been. Whoever they were, they almost certainly do not include either the Robert Colquhoun made denizen of Ireland in 1630, or the Colhoun family of Crosh in Ireland. As for the Adam Colhoun Sr. living at Corkagh in 1665, it seems he was not the son of Luss, so who was he? That too remains a mystery—for now.

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Posted on August 29, 2023November 29, 2023 by anton88887

Two Middle Names That Aren’t

Before going further with this blog, I feel I must address two pivotal figures in the history of the Calhoun family, particularly for Americans. These men are very often referred to by researchers as “William Campbell Colhoun” (or Colquhoun) and “James Patrick Calhoun” (or Colhoun). The reason I am discussing them here is because—in all likelihood—these were not their names. Yes, they were real people, and important ones from a genealogical perspective, but according to all primary sources I have seen, their names were simply William Colhoun and Patrick Calhoun, respectively. If you have historical or genealogical interest in the Calhoun family, I hope to convince you that these misnomers should be corrected.

Based on the records I have seen, the use of middle names in Ireland did not begin until the second half of the 18^th century, with their use increasing through the 19^th century. The first to use middle names seem to have been the gentry, who would use an ancestral surname (such as a mother’s or grandmother’s maiden name) as the middle name for a child. A good example of this comes from the Colhoun family of Crosh, County Tyrone with Robert Hazlitt Colhoun (1785-1875), whose middle name was the maiden surname of his paternal grandmother, Margaret Hazlitt. Later, people of all classes began the practice of using two given names, like “Mary Ann”, “John Patrick”, etc. I have not found a good online reference to describe the timeline for use of middle names in Ireland, but I have seen my conclusions echoed on several online discussion forums about naming practices in Ireland, Britain, and the US, where the trends were similar.

William Colhoun was born about 1635, and Patrick Calhoun was born about 1680, both in Ireland and both well before 1750 when the first middle names began to appear. It therefore stands to reason that neither of them had a middle name, and any such names associated with these two men must have been mistakenly assigned to them by later researchers. (So, what’s wrong with continuing to call them by these spurious middle names, even if only for tradition’s sake? Well, a hundred years from now, would you want people referring to you by a name that wasn’t yours when you’re not around to correct them? Me neither.)

Because of their historical importance to the Calhoun family, there is a lot to say about both William and Patrick. I hope to discuss each of them in greater detail in future posts, but for now I will try my best to restrict discussion of them to the issue of their names.

William Colhoun

William Colhoun is the documented ancestor of the Colhoun family of Crosh, County Tyrone, Ireland and the stated ancestor of the many American Calhouns who, rightly or wrongly, claim descent from the Crosh family. He was most likely born in Ireland sometime in the 1630s or—less likely—the early 1640s, and he lived most of his adult life near Newtownstewart, County Tyrone. I know of only three references to him that were written during his lifetime: the Hearth Money Rolls for County Tyrone from 1666, the will of his father-in-law, Alexander McCausland, dated 11 June 1674, and the school records of his son Rev. Alexander Colhoun from Trinity College Dublin ca. 1680-84 (compiled as Alumni Dublinenses; 1935 edition, p. 163). In all three documents, he was referred to simply as “William” with no middle name or initial. The same is true of three significant secondary sources: Croslegh (who was himself William’s direct descendant) p. 191, McPherson p. 8 (taken from the research of Alan Taliaferro Calhoun, likely based on Croslegh), and the entry for Alexander M’Auslane on p. 59 of vol. II of Burke’s History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland from 1836 (probably derived from the will of Alexander McCausland mentioned above).

As far as I can tell, the first reference to William with the middle name “Campbell” is Orval Calhoun’s work from 1976 (Our Calhoun Family [OCF] vol. 1). Whether this insertion was made by Orval himself or by a correspondent who supplied him with information I cannot tell. Orval states (OCF vol. 1, p. 25), “They named their eldest son, William Campbell Colhoun, born 1643, after the family connections to the Campbell family in Scotland, which has been connected to the Colquhoun family for many generations, even to this day….” However, OCF repeats the same pedigree of William’s ancestry that was proposed by Croslegh. This pedigree, which runs through the Colquhoun of Luss family, shows no intermarriages between Colquhouns and Campbells among William’s direct ancestors, so Orval’s explanation regarding the “middle name” seems improbable.

There is precedent for the association of the name Campbell with other members of the Calhoun family in the middle name era (i.e., post-1750). In Ireland, there was a man truly named William Campbell Colhoun, son of Thomas Colhoun and Fanny McCandless, who was born on 22 October 1900 in Knockglass in Inishowen, Co. Donegal. In addition, there is an entire Scottish branch of the family called by the double surname “Campbell-Colquhoun”. They are descendants of a man born Archibald Campbell (1756-1820), son of John Campbell of Clathick, Perthshire and Agnes Colquhoun, only child of Laurence Colquhoun, 1^st of Killermont. When Archibald succeeded his mother to the estate of Killermont, the terms of succession were that he adopt the name and arms of Colquhoun, and so he and his descendants became known as Colquhoun or Campbell-Colquhoun. (This arrangement was analogous to the Grant family adopting the name Colquhoun to continue the surname in the Luss family in 1718.) Finally, in the Colquhoun of Luss family itself were two cousins, both grandsons of Sir James Colquhoun, 23^rd/25^th of Luss, 8^th baronet: Archibald Campbell Colquhoun (1811-1842), son of Ludovic Colquhoun, and John Campbell Colquhoun (1785-1854), advocate and sheriff of Dunbartonshire, son of Sir James Colquhoun, 24^th/26^th of Luss. Both men were probably named for their uncle General John Campbell of Barbreck, husband of their aunt Janet (Fraser vol. 1, p. 395).

There seems to be no discernible relationship between any of these Colquhouns with Campbell in their name and the William Colhoun of Newtownstewart under consideration here. I suggest that somewhere along the line during the compilation of Orval’s book, the name “Campbell” was attributed to William of Newtownstewart by mistake.

Has anyone run across any other primary sources, or even any secondary sources predating OCF, that would justify the continued use of the name “Campbell” in reference to this William?

Patrick Calhoun

Patrick Calhoun was the grandfather of US Vice President John Caldwell Calhoun (1782-1850) and the progenitor of a large family of Calhouns in America. Patrick brought his family (consisting of himself, his wife, Catherine, and five children) from Ireland to the American Colonies sometime around 1733. They settled first in Lancaster Co., PA, migrated south to Augusta Co. (now Wythe Co.), VA in 1746, and then from there to the Ninety-Six District (now Abbeville Co.), SC in 1756. The youngest of Patrick’s children, a son also named Patrick Calhoun (1727-1796), was the father of the Vice President. To distinguish the two Patricks, I will refer to the Vice President’s father as “Patrick Jr.” and his grandfather as “Patrick Sr.”

The story of Patrick Sr.’s name, particularly how the second name “James” became attached to him, is a complicated one. In short, it is uncertain whether anyone in the Calhoun family recalled the name of the immigrant grandfather by the early 19^th century, since it is not stated in any surviving correspondence. However, in the 1880s, long after those who might have known better were deceased, a tradition was started—based on what evidence is not clear—that the grandfather was named “James.” This tradition gained credence when it was perpetuated by certain members of the family itself. It was not until 1936 that primary source documents mentioning the grandfather were discovered, revealing his name to be Patrick. However, by that time the erroneous name “James” had gained such wide acceptance, based on several decades of tradition, that researchers were reluctant to part with it entirely. Sometime between 1936 and 1957, seeing two possible given names before them—one correct and one incorrect—certain family historians began calling the grandfather by both names, as “James Patrick.” Unfortunately, when you mix good data with bad data, what you get is more bad data. Since we know from Irish naming tradition that Patrick would not have had a second given name, “James Patrick” is no more correct than “James” is. Now the details.

What the family knew. In surviving correspondence, Vice President Calhoun mentions a few details of genealogical interest, such as the birthplace of his father (as County Donegal, Ireland) and the birth order of his father’s brothers. However, nowhere does he mention the name of his immigrant grandfather. (His grandmother’s name, on the other hand, is known from the memorial tombstone erected to her by his father in 1760.) Worth noting is that John C. Calhoun was born in 1782, more than 40 years after the death of his grandfather Patrick Sr. and more than 20 years after the death of his grandmother Catherine. Three of his father’s four siblings and their spouses were also dead by the time he was born. When John C. was 14 (in 1796), his father (Patrick Jr.) and his father’s remaining brother (William) were likewise deceased, so there was no one from earlier generations left to ask about the family’s immigration from Ireland or anything else of genealogical significance. It is therefore not surprising that he would not have known much about his grandfather. In fact, no surviving correspondence from the first three generations of the Calhoun family or the family’s early 19^th century biographers mentions the name of the immigrant grandfather, or at least not that I am aware of.

The emergence of the erroneous name “James”. The apparently erroneous idea that the grandfather’s name was “James” emerged in the 1880s based on two sources, both of uncertain origin. The first is a biographical sketch of the life of John C. Calhoun written by Col. William Pinkney Starke, an abridged version of which was published in 1900 by John Franklin Jameson as part of the book Correspondence of John C. Calhoun (1900), pp. 65-89. In 1883, Starke was invited to the Fort Hill, SC home of Vice President Calhoun’s son-in-law Thomas Green Clemson (1807-1888) to write Calhoun’s biography [see Jacobsen, John Gregory. “Historians and John C. Calhoun: One hundred and fifty years of historiography” (1999). Student Work. 468]. Starke died before he could finish the work, and to my knowledge, the abridged sketch in Jameson’s book is all that survives. Jameson notes that Starke prepared the biography “from the papers left by [John C. Calhoun]” and “from materials of neighborhood tradition” (Jameson, p. 18). It was written in shorthand, transcribed by Senator Benjamin R. Tillman (1847-1918), and then abridged for inclusion, presumably by Jameson himself. The sketch states,

Among the emigrants from Scotland to North Ireland who crossed the channel early in the eighteenth century was a family of Colquhouns and another of Caldwells…. The Calhouns, as we shall henceforth call them, settled near Donegal in the northwestern part of the island, in which country Patrick Calhoun, the father of John Caldwell Calhoun, was born in 1723…. In the year 1733 a family of Calhouns emigrated to America. One of the three brothers was James Calhoun, who with Catherine, his wife, and four sons, James, William, Patrick, and Ezekiel, had resided in Donegal. They landed in New York, but soon removed to the western part of Pennsylvania, where they settled not far from the Potomac River.
John Franklin Jameson. Correspondence of John C. Calhoun (1900), p. 65.

This level of detail about the migrations from Scotland to Ulster, and then from Ulster to America, is far beyond what John C. Calhoun himself seems to have known about, and it is hard to imagine any other surviving members of the family having recalled any of this by 1883. The source of Starke’s information, therefore, is not clear. As early as 1901, The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine (vol. 2, no. 2, April 1901, p. 159) criticized Starke’s sketch, stating that it, “like all family histories founded upon family traditions instead of original research, is full of errors.” Writing in 1917, William Montgomery Meigs states, “There is no doubt at all as to the presence in America of this one member of the generation preceding that of the four brothers, but I know of no evidence tending to bear out Col. Starke’s statement that her husband’s name was James and that James emigrated, accompanied by two brothers, as well as by his own immediate family.” (The Life of John C. Calhoun, p. 32, footnote 6.)

The second source has been referred to as the “Memoirs of John Ewing Colhoun”. John Ewing Colhoun (ca. 1749-1802), son of Ezekiel, was a US Congressman and Senator, and both the father-in-law and older first cousin (by 33 years) of Vice President John C. Calhoun. Although papers from John Ewing Colhoun are preserved at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to my knowledge these memoirs are not among them. This, and the fact that this work was not cited or mentioned by anyone until 1890, nearly 90 years after its purported author’s death, casts some doubt on its validity. Nonetheless, a quotation purporting to come from these memoirs appeared in two influential sources. The first, from about 1890, is the application of the Vice President’s grandson and namesake, Capt. John Caldwell Calhoun (1843-1918), son of Andrew Pickens Calhoun, to the Sons of the American Revolution. The second, from 1917, is a biographical sketch of the Calhoun family in Notable Southern Families, compiled by Zella Armstrong. The two quotes are similar but not identical; the version from Armstrong reads,

In 1733 James Calhoun emigrated from the County of Donegal, Ireland, with his wife Catherine Montgomery. They brought over with them four sons, and one daughter, James, Ezekial [sic], William and Patrick and Catherine. Catherine was married to a Mr. Noble…. The father of James, the emigrant, was Patrick Calhoun, whose father was James, and so on alternating with these two names for several generations.
Zella Armstrong. Notable Southern Families, vol. I. Chattanooga, TN: Lookout Publishing Co., 1918, pp. 46-47.

This statement contains an obvious error: the daughter’s name was not Catherine but Mary (1714-1756), wife of John Noble (1712-1752) (as per the probate records of John Noble from Augusta Co., VA). Although Mary died when John Ewing Colhoun was about 7 years old, it seems reasonable that he should have recalled her name, and this error further calls into question the overall validity of this source. It is interesting that both the “Memoirs” and Starke’s work emerged at roughly the same time, and both make the claim that the grandfather was “James.” Was one derived from the other, or were both derived from a common source of unfounded tradition among the Vice President’s descendants? Unless other documents come to light, there is no way to know for sure. Regardless, Capt. John C. Calhoun sent information based on this account to Charles Croslegh, who included it in his own work (Croslegh, p. 217), further perpetuating the error that the grandfather’s name was James.

Based on naming patterns in the later generations of the Calhoun family, associating the name “James” with the grandfather was certainly a reasonable guess, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, this guess might have stood. However, we do have other data that positively disproves it. As Mark Twain once said, “Nothing spoils a good story like the arrival of an eyewitness.”

The discovery of the true name “Patrick”. Not all historians of the family bought into the idea that the grandfather’s name was James. Among those who didn’t were the aforementioned William M. Meigs, and A. S. Salley, Jr., author of several articles on the family. Salley’s early holdout paid off, and after the discovery of primary source documents naming the grandfather as Patrick, he published an article in 1938 reporting the discovery and seemingly clearing up the misconception. [A. S. Salley. “The Grandfather of John C. Calhoun.” In The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. 39, no. 1 (Jan., 1938), p. 50.] He states,

Although several earlier writers had stated that the husband of Mrs. Calhoun and the father of her five children was named James …, this writer was not able to find any record of the name of the husband and father…, so he avoided any reference to the uncertain claims theretofore presented and unsupported by any references to records. Time has vindicated the writer’s judgment in ignoring those unsupported claims. During the later part of 1936, Mr. George T. Edson of Beatrice, Nebraska, editor of The Stewart Clan Magazine, discovered in the probate court records of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, records of administration on the estate of one Patrick Calhoun which show that he was the husband of Mrs. Catherine and the father of her four sons who figured in Augusta County, Virginia, from 1746 to 1756. The inventory was made in 1741 by James Small and John Williams and presented in 1743 to the probate Court of Lancaster County. His plantation and crops in the ground were valued at £100; four horses, a goat, six cows, five young cattle, nineteen sheep, swine, wagon, gears, plows, irons, tools, and household goods were valued at £52.5s, making a total of £152.5s. The widow, Catherine, renounced the right of administration in favor of Ezekiel and William Calhoun. A bond of £200, for the administrators, signed by Ezekiel Calhoun, William Calhoun, John Noble and James Mitchell, all of Lancaster county, was accepted by the court May 4, 1743, and settlement was to be made by May 4, 1744.
A. S. Salley. “The Grandfather of John C. Calhoun.” In The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. 39, no. 1 (Jan., 1938), p. 50.

The widow and children named in the probate records positively identify this Patrick as the grandfather of John C. Calhoun. This record is the only primary source document naming the grandfather, as it was written at the time of his death and corroborated by his widow and children. I need to stress that even if an original document written by John Ewing Colhoun were to surface that explicitly stated that the grandfather was named James, it still would not carry as much weight as this probate record, since John Ewing Colhoun was born some eight years after Patrick Sr.’s death and 400 miles to the south of where Patrick Sr. lived and died. In short, he was not an eyewitness to his grandfather.

Children and grandchildren of Patrick Calhoun Sr., with those with the name Patrick in red and James in blue. If we believe the “Memoirs” quote (above) that in the generations before Patrick Sr., the names James and Patrick alternated, then we might assume that his father’s name was James. However, this is speculative.

Although it is not a primary source document, there is a second piece of evidence that corroborates the name Patrick for the grandfather. The South Carolina Historical Commission has in its collection a book of sermons preached in 1680-88 by John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury, and published in 1728. This book was an heirloom from the Calhoun family first given to Vice President John C. Calhoun by his father, Patrick Jr. In 1836, Vice President Calhoun gave it to Col. M. O. Tollison for the Greenwood Library, who then gave it to Gen. James Gilliam, a cousin of Vice President Calhoun on the Caldwell side. Gilliam later gave it to Mary Gilliam Aiken, wife of A. M. Aiken, who gave it to the South Carolina Historical Commission. [Source: Leonardo Andrea’s Calhoun file (#128, p. 20; LDS film 954530), kindly related to me by William Lindsey.]

The book is inscribed, “Patk Colhoun’s book.” According to both Andrea and Lindsey, the signature in the inscription does not match that of the Vice President’s father, Patrick Jr., or of any Patrick Calhouns from later generations. Below are images of this inscription and of the signature of Patrick Calhoun Jr. for comparison, and I agree with their assessment. This difference, along with the date of publication of the book and the use of the Irish spelling of the surname (Colhoun) in the inscription suggests that the book originally belonged to Patrick Sr., perhaps acquired by him in Ireland and brought to the US when he and his family immigrated. If so, this may be the only remaining item from this particular Calhoun family’s time in Ireland, a precious heirloom indeed.

Inscription from the book of sermons published in 1728 held by the South Carolina Historical Commission. (The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson, 9th edition. London: J. Round, etc., 1728, p. iii.)

Signature of Patrick Calhoun Jr. From A. S. Salley, “The Calhoun Family of South Carolina.” In The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, vol. 7-8 (1900), p. 156.

The “middle name”. The correct name of Patrick Calhoun Sr., and its discovery, was reiterated in 1957 by McPherson (pp. 8-9), who states,

… Calhoun Mays of Greenwood, S.C. has photostatic copies of [Patrick Calhoun Sr.’s probate records], which he exhibited at a reception meeting of his kin, other descendants of immigrant, Patrick in Columbia, South Carolina later signatures being checked against these earlier for convincing all.

Nonetheless, it seems that researchers were reluctant to give up the notion that the name “James” should be in some way connected with the grandfather. Perhaps as a compromise, or due to the genealogical equivalent of FoMO, people kept use of the name James, relegating “Patrick” to use as a middle name. This evidently had already occurred before McPherson’s publication, since on p. 80, in an accounting of the Colhoun family of Crosh that he clearly believed was dubious, McPherson mentions that others had included among the descendants of that Irish family a “James Patrick Calhoun, who went to the American Colonies.” He further states that this James Patrick, who married a Catherine Montgomery, was of the right age and circumstances to have been one and the same as the Patrick who was the grandfather of Vice President Calhoun.

Unfortunately, this compound name continues to be widely circulated. If you have read this far, I hope I have convinced you that the correct and only name of the Vice President’s grandfather was Patrick Calhoun. If so, it would be a great service to the genealogical community to correct the online record and remove any and all outdated references to “James” and “James Patrick.”

Has anyone run across any other primary sources, or even any secondary sources from before 1883, that explicitly refer to the Vice President’s grandfather by name? (Whatever the name.) Has anyone seen the original correspondence that is the source of the “Memoirs of John Ewing Colhoun”?

Update, November 29, 2023

When this article was originally published on August 29, 2023, I did not have an image of the inscription from Tillotson’s book of sermons, which was published in 1728 while the immigrant ancestor of the family, Patrick Calhoun Sr., was still living and when his son Patrick Calhoun Jr. was still an infant at most. That has changed, and I have now updated this article to include it. I also made a few minor modifications to the text in the paragraph discussing the signature. I would like to express my gratitude to the staff of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History for providing the image to Bill Lindsey, and to Bill for his tireless efforts to acquire it and for kindly providing it to me to share.

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Thanks yet again to Paul Calhoun for very helpful edits and comments. I am also grateful to Paul and to William Lindsey for extremely helpful discussions and sharing of information on the topic of Patrick Calhoun Sr. and his family, and I consider this post a collaborative effort. Be sure to check out William’s own genealogy blog site, entitled “Begats and Bequeathals”!

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Posted on July 25, 2023August 7, 2023 by anton88887 · 4 Comments

The Senior Colquhoun Lines of Scotland

titles and terminology

By Scottish tradition, the chief of the Calhoun family is The Colquhoun of Colquhoun and Luss, who has resided for centuries on the shores of Loch Lomond in Dunbartonshire. He is officially recognized as a clan chief by the Court of the Lord Lyon, the legal arbiter of Scottish heraldry. This entitles him to bear the undifferenced arms granted to his ancestor Sir John Colquhoun, 13^th of Colquhoun and 15^th of Luss, in 1542 by that same court.

As with most Scottish clans, the chief is the senior-most male descendant of the family’s founder, in our case Humphrey of Kilpatrick, who is considered the first chief (i.e., 1^st of Colquhoun). All chiefs who have followed him are numbered consecutively, and I follow the numbering of Fraser, who may or may not have originated the system. In the early generations of the family, their seat was in the Barony of Colquhoun from which they took their name. The chief of the family was therefore also the laird of Colquhoun, with laird being not a hereditary title implying nobility but rather a Scots word meaning specifically an estate owner.

Around 1368, Humphrey’s great-great-grandson Sir Robert Colquhoun, 5^th of Colquhoun, married the daughter and heiress of Godfrey, 6^th of Luss. Her given name is not known, so she is referred to by Fraser and others, in fairy-tale fashion, as “The Fair Maid of Luss.” With Godfrey’s death around 1385, the male line and surname of Luss came to an end, and the family’s extensive property on the shores of Loch Lomond was inherited by his daughter and her husband, the aforementioned Sir Robert Colquhoun. Evidently the Barony of Luss was a more desirable property than the Barony of Colquhoun, since the Colquhoun chiefs soon moved their seat to Luss, where they have remained ever since. They thus became lairds of Luss beginning with Sir Robert, who succeeded Godfrey as 7^th of Luss. From Robert’s time on, the senior-most Colquhouns have been referred to with two numbers, of the form “Sir Robert Colquhoun, 5^th of Colquhoun and 7^th of Luss.” Eventually, the lands of Colquhoun passed out of the family’s ownership, and so I take the title since then to mean “5^th chief of Colquhoun [the family] and 7^th laird of Luss [the property].” Whether this interpretation is correct or not, I’m not sure.

I tend to use a shorthand format of my own invention to describe the chiefs succinctly with both numberings. My shorthand for the example above would be “Sir Robert Colquhoun, 5^th/7^th of Luss.” It is not standard, and I hope no one is offended by this.

On 30 August 1625, the Colquhoun chiefs acquired another hereditary title when King Charles I granted to Sir John Colquhoun, 16^th/18^th of Luss the rank and dignity of Baronet. The initial grant was a new Baronetcy of Colquhoun in the colony of Nova Scotia in America, to be located near LaHave. In 1704, Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, 20^th/22^nd of Luss, 5^th Baronet, having no male heirs to pass the baronetcy to as required by the original grant, surrendered the title to the Crown and was regranted the same under terms that allowed its succession to his son-in-law, James Grant, who would then become Sir James Colquhoun, 21^st/23^rd of Luss. However, Sir James subsequently inherited the Grant estate, and that original baronetcy passed into the Grant family. James Grant’s son Sir James Colquhoun, 23^rd/25^th of Luss was granted a new title, Baronet of Great Britain, just a few months before his death in 1786, and this new title has been in the Colquhoun of Luss family ever since. The present chief of the family is Sir Malcolm Rory Colquhoun, 31^st/33^rd of Luss, 9^th Baronet of Great Britain.

Again, the position of chief and laird is typically inherited by the eldest son of the outgoing chief, or if he has no surviving sons, the eldest in the family’s male line according to rules of British primogeniture, which I don’t fully understand. However, younger sons from the Luss family sometimes acquired property of their own, either through division of the Luss estate or by marriage into another landowning family. These younger sons therefore established junior lines (so-called “cadet branches”) of the Colquhoun family, named for the property of which they became laird.

Relationships of the various cadet branches to the Colquhouns of Colquhoun and Luss based on Fraser vols. 1 and 2.

The Colquhouns from these families belong to the gentry, the upper social strata of British commoners, and none of them to my knowledge have risen to the peerage (aristocracy). Even Baronets do not belong to the peerage. I’m an American and confess that I’m not used to the terminology of titled gentry and aristocracy (with the notable exception of the Duke of New York, A-Number One [video, with sound], once held by the late, great Isaac Hayes). The table below describes the social ranks to which the Calhoun gentry of Scotland and Ireland belonged, as best I have been able to figure them out. As always, I welcome any correction by those who know more than I do.

Rank	Hereditary	Prefix Title	Description
Baronet	yes	Sir/Lady	Hereditary honor created by James I in 1611 to raise revenue for the crown
Knight	no	Sir/Lady	Non-hereditary; there are several orders, all but one of which fall between baronet and esquire in rank
Esquire	no	none	Traditionally for eldest sons of knights and some younger descendants of peers, but also bestowed by virtue of certain offices
Gentleman	no	none	Generally men of “good social standing” who did not need to work for a living

Genealogical importance of the senior lines

I focus on the Colquhoun of Luss family in this post because of its genealogical importance. Using family records from Rossdhu and Camstradden, Fraser built pedigrees of this family and its connected cadet branches beginning with Humphrey of Kilpatrick in the 13^th century and extending all the way to the 19^th century, an unbroken lineage of Colquhoun chiefs and chieftains. Most of us who are interested in family history and genealogy would love to connect ourselves to such a pedigree, but very few of us (if any) can actually do so. In centuries past, only families who were deemed “important” in some way (namely, those with land, titles, or money) were documented. Such people were a minority, and so for most of us, our paper trail ends in the 18^th or 19^th century.

Can genetic information from Y-DNA help us? In theory, yes. In my earlier post, I stated that Humphrey of Kilpatrick was the patrilineal ancestor not only of males from the Colquhoun of Luss family (prior to 1718) and its cadet branches, but also of all Calhoun males belonging to haplogroup E-Y16733. For most of us, however, there is a five- or six-century gap between Humphrey and our earliest documented Calhoun ancestor. If we can simply find someone who is a patrilineal descendant of Humphrey of Kilpatrick with an unbroken paper trail—namely someone descended from the Luss family or one of its cadet branches—to take a Y-DNA test, he could serve as a “gold standard” for those without such a paper trail. Having this point of reference would not magically create paper trails for the rest of us, but it would at least close the gap between Humphrey and ourselves considerably, since we would have a much better idea of approximately when each of our ancestries branched off from Fraser’s lineage.

Here’s the problem: the male lineages of the Colquhouns of Luss and of every cadet branch of the family have ended. Yes, the Colquhouns of Luss have continued to the present day, but there was a break in the strict father-to-son lineage in 1718 with the death of Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, 20^th/22^nd of Luss, 5^th Baronet. As I mentioned above, he had no sons, and so the family line continued through his daughter Anne Colquhoun, who married James Grant. The present-day Colquhouns of Luss are the male-line descendants of Anne’s younger son Sir James Colquhoun, 23^rd/25^th of Luss, whose Y-chromosome came from the Grant family. The following table describes the fates of the various Colquhoun family branches (source: Fraser vols. 1 and 2).

Family	Founder (First in Male Lineage)	Last in Male Lineage
Luss	Humphrey of Kilpatrick, 1^st of Colquhoun (1190-1260)	Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, 20^th/22^nd of Luss (d. 1718)
Tillyquhoun (Tullichewan)	Alexander (fl. 1666), third son of Sir John Colquhoun, 16^th/18^th of Luss	Robert-David Colquhoun, 7^th of Tillyquhoun (d. 1838)
Camstradden	Robert, son of Sir Robert Colquhoun, 5^th/7^th of Luss (1395-1439)	Sir Robert Gilmour Colquhoun, 17^th of Camstradden (d. 1870)
Kilmardinny	Walter (d. bef 1541), third son of Sir John Colquhoun, 11^th/13^th of Luss	John Colquhoun (7^th generation), d. ca. 1692
Garscube	James, second son of Humphrey Colquhoun, 12^th/14^th of Luss	Property soon reverted to Luss
Garscadden and Killermont	Descendant of John, second son of Robert Colquhoun, 6^th of Camstradden	James Colquhoun, 7^th generation from John (d. 1801)
Balvie	Humphrey, second son of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss	No children, did not continue
Kenmure	Patrick, third son of Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, 6^th/8^th of Luss	William Colquhoun Stirling of Edenbarnet (d. 1866)
Barnhill (Bonniel, Bonhill)	John Colquhoun of Milton, 1543 charter from Sir John Colquhoun, 13^th/15^th of Luss	Walter Colquhoun, 8^th of Barnhill (d. 1827)

Despite this, there is some good news. Just because the titled positions above have all ended in the male line, that doesn’t mean we won’t be able to find male-line descendants. In my next post, I will list many younger sons from the various family lines above who are unaccounted for (by Fraser, at least) and who could have male-line descendants alive today. My sincere hope is that eventually someone with a solid, documented pedigree back to someone in that list will be identified and would be willing to take the Big Y test. More soon!

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Special thanks to Paul Calhoun for critical reading of this post and helpful edits.

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Posted on July 9, 2023August 8, 2023 by anton88887 · 6 Comments

Calhoun Haplogroup E-Y16733

As determined by the Calhoun Surname Project at FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA), most Calhoun men today (or at least, most of those who have taken Y-DNA tests) belong to haplogroup E1b1b1, also called E-M35. I and many others believe that the Calhouns in E-M35 are the direct patrilineal descendants of Humphrey of Kilpatrick, later of Colquhoun, 13^th century founder of the Calhoun family. In my previous post, I outlined the evidence for this, the main points being that (1) the common patrilineal ancestor of the E-M35 Calhouns lived around the time that Humphrey did, and (2) some of their closest genetic relatives, connecting shortly before Humphrey’s time, are named Kilpatrick or Kirkpatrick, consistent with a 13^th century name change from Kilpatrick to Colquhoun. I want to devote this post to the E-M35 Calhouns not only because it is Humphrey’s haplogroup and bears on the origin of the family, but also, more selfishly, because it’s the haplogroup of my own Calhoun ancestors.

In fact, the SNP M35 that defines haplogroup E-M35 is more than 25,000 years old, so the Calhouns represent only a minuscule fraction of all E-M35 men alive today. It is more precise to refer to these Calhouns as belonging to E-Y16733, a much more recent haplogroup, which at about 1,300 years old predates the surname era by just a few centuries. It includes all of the E-M35 Calhouns and their Kilpatrick relatives, and very few others.

The SNPs that occurred between M35 and Y16733 tell us about the migration patterns of ancestors from prehistoric times until about 700 CE, while the SNPs that occurred after Y16733 tell us more specifically about the origins and the structure of the Calhoun family, in some cases revealing important genealogical information. Some of the SNPs in the ancestry of the E-M35 Calhouns include the following, from oldest to youngest:

SNP	Age (YA)	TMRCA (YA)	Likely Place of Origin
M35	34,000	25,000	Ethiopia
M78	20,000	14,000	Egypt
V13	8750	5075	Between Anatolia and Kosovo
BY3880	4250	4200	Kosovo?
Y16729	4200	4100	Eastern Europe?
Y16721	4100	4000	Europe?
Y16733	1325	975	Britain or Flanders?
BY5775	925	725	Scotland, in the Kilpatrick or Calhoun family
FT350465	725	575	Scotland, in the Calhoun family
FT32806	725	675	Scotland, in the Calhoun family
BY5778	725	475	Scotland, in the Calhoun or McCarter family

YA = years ago. TMRCA = time to most recent common ancestor. Ages and TMRCA are based on estimates from FTDNA Discover; alternative estimates can be found at YFull. Places of origin of SNPs are usually more difficult to determine than ages, and these are my best guesses based on recent studies.

Migration of Calhoun family’s Ancestors in ancient times

The places and ages of formation of these SNPs tell the story of the migration of the Calhouns’ patrilineal ancestors from prehistoric times. The story begins about 34,000 years ago in the Horn of Africa, likely in the modern country of Ethiopia, where M35 occurred in an ancient ancestor. By 20,000-25,000 years ago, his descendants had moved north into what is now Egypt, where M78 formed. As climate conditions changed, some M78 descendants returned to the Horn of Africa, while others, including our ancestors, continued north, crossing out of Africa into the Middle East. This northern migration of M78 individuals is associated with the spread of Afroasiatic languages (from which modern languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and many others arise).

Sometime around 9,000 years ago, Neolithic people bearing the SNP M78 entered Europe from Anatolia. They had by this time adopted a farming lifestyle, and as they entered Europe, they displaced or absorbed the existing hunter-gatherer populations. Somewhere between Anatolia and the Balkans in Europe, V13 formed in an M78 descendant. Haplogroup E-V13 has been a particularly interesting topic for scientific study because (1) it is the only E-M35 lineage that exists primarily outside of Africa today, and (2) it is associated with the first wave of farmers in Europe, predating the Indo-Europeans by several millennia. V13 reaches its highest frequencies in the Balkans (particularly in the modern-day region of Kosovo), Greece, and parts of Italy. Its frequency diminishes significantly as one moves north and west from the Balkans.

Frequency of haplogroup E-V13 based on the data set of Cruciani et al (2007). (Source: “HgE1b1b1a2.png” by Hxseek. Creative Commons license CC BY 3.0.)

Just over 4,000 years ago, three SNPs in the Calhouns’ specific ancestry––BY3880, Y16729, and Y16721––occurred in rapid succession and may have been associated with the migration of V13 people out of the Balkans. BY3880 descendants live in many places throughout Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. Interestingly, Y16729 has only two known descendant lineages, one primarily in the Arabian Peninsula, and the other (Y16721) primarily in Scotland. Y16721 probably arose in continental Europe several millennia before people in that haplogroup arrived in Scotland, and it is possible that most of its descendant lineages outside of Scotland have died out or have yet to be identified. As far as I can tell, most Y-DNA testers that belong to E-Y16721 also belong to the much more recent haplogroup E-Y16733, which probably formed about 700 CE.

Although V13 is rare in the far west of Europe, it can be found in several pockets in Britain, including the historic regions of Wales, Cumbria, and Strathclyde (now part of Scotland and notably including Dunbartonshire). How did it get there? One widely held theory is that it arrived with Roman soldiers from the Balkans who were stationed in Britain starting in 150 CE. (See Steven C. Bird, “Haplogroup E3b1a2 as a possible indicator of settlement in Roman Britain by soldiers of Balkan origin”, 2007). As the chart “Phylogenetic Tree of Haplogroup E1b1b” at eupedia.com shows, V13 testers in England and Scotland belong not just to Y16721 but to several subgroups of V13 that are distantly related to each other. While the Roman-soldier theory is plausible, it implies that all of these different V13 lineages arrived in Britain at approximately the same time and all directly from the Balkans, both ideas that are difficult to prove.

Others argue that the various V13 haplotypes in Britain did not all come at the same time but rather via multiple migration events that brought V13-bearing Phoenicians, North Africans, French and Spanish Jews, and other groups to the island. (See DNA Consultants, “Right pew, wrong church”, 2012). Perhaps more relevant to the Calhoun family is the possibility that V13 also arrived with Flemish soldiers and mercenaries who came in the wake of the Norman conquest of England in 1066. (See Rick Sinnott, “Synnott history: a compendium”, 2020). Some of these Flemings were stationed in Wales, and it is possible that others were recruited to the fledgling feudal aristocracy of Scotland established by King David I (see my earlier blog post). While V13 and BY3880 have been identified in modern Flemish testers in FTDNA’s Flanders & Flemish DNA Project, subgroups Y16721 and Y16733 have not. However, the current sample size is extremely small.

Genetics of the E-Y16733 Calhouns in the Genealogical Era

The common ancestor of E-Y16733 testers lived shortly before the adoption of surnames in Scotland, and so this haplogroup and its descendants are of genealogical relevance. Of the more than 100 Y-DNA testers in the Calhoun Surname Project who belong to E-Y16733, more than 60 have taken the Big Y (comprehensive SNP) test. The accompanying tree summarizes the relationships of these 60 based on their terminal haplogroups and information about some of their earliest known paternal ancestors.

We got extremely lucky with the timing of formation of two particular SNPs in this group. The first is Y16733 itself, which includes both Calhouns and Kilpatricks, but very few others. Because it dates from roughly 700-1050 CE, shortly before the surname era, it is safe to assume that people in this group who share the same surname do so because they inherited it from a common ancestor with that name. The second is the more recent SNP BY5775, which dates from roughly 1100-1300 CE and neatly separates the Calhouns from the Kilpatricks. All E-Y16733 Calhouns who have tested so far are positive for BY5775, while all Kilpatricks are negative. This observation is consistent with the idea that the Calhoun name was first adopted by a man named Kilpatrick prior to 1300 CE. From the historical record, we know this man to have been Humphrey of Kilpatrick, who adopted the Colquhoun name around 1240 CE. <Mic drop!>

In addition to Kilpatrick, the surnames Welch/Welsh, McClelland, and a few others appear among the deep branches of the E-Y16733 tree. These may have come about from NPEs within the Kilpatrick family, or they could connect to the Kilpatricks and Calhouns prior to the surname era. At present, there is not enough data to resolve the relationships of these deep branches to each other.

All of the BY5775 testers belong to one of three subgroups, two of which (FT350465 and FT32806) include only Calhouns, while the third (BY5778) includes only members of the McCarter family. While it seems likely that the McCarter group are the biological descendants of a Calhoun (or, less likely, a Kilpatrick) ancestor, acquiring the McCarter name through an NPE that occurred sometime between 1300 and 1550, there is no way to know at present. In addition, there is not yet enough data to resolve the relationships between the three subgroups of BY5775. I will therefore focus on the two Calhoun subgroups, which split from each other between 1300 and 1350, very early in the history of the family.

E-FT350465 includes Calhoun testers of diverse backgrounds. Some are descendants of Ulster Scots from Ireland, while others are descendants of Scots who as far as we know never moved to Ireland. Several are known to have been Anglicans, while others were Presbyterians. Some were wealthy landowners while others were poorer tenants. It is clear that among the ancestors of this group were at least five Calhouns who independently moved from Scotland to Ireland in the 17^th century. Notably, this group includes the landowning Colhoun family of Crosh, County Tyrone, Ireland whose supposed pedigree was published by Charles Croslegh in 1904.

E-FT32806 likewise includes some testers with Irish (Ulster Scot) ancestry and others with Scottish ancestry. However, most if not all appear to have been Presbyterian in the 18^th century, and there are no known landowning families in their ancestry. One subgroup of FT32806, FTA41789, includes relatives of Vice President John C. Calhoun and other Calhoun families who settled in Abbeville County, South Carolina in the 1700s. At least two ancestors within this group independently moved from Scotland to Ireland in the 17th century.

Tree of haplogroups of E-Y16733 Big Y testers as of April 2023. SNPs are labeled with red dots, placed at TMRCA. Testers are described with surname and place of origin of earliest ancestor, colored in red for Calhoun surnames, blue for Kilpatrick surnames, and gray for others. Those known to have originated in Ireland labeled with green flags, and those in Scotland with the Scottish flag (blue). Green screen marks the period of Ulster settlement by Scots, ca. 1625-1700. Groups of testers who could be descended from a common settler of Ireland have the green flag column boxed in light green.

E-Y16733 and the colquhoun of luss lineage

An important question that many Calhoun testers ask is how they might be related to the Colquhouns of Colquhoun and Luss, the “senior line” of the Calhoun family in Scotland whose pedigree, worked out by William Fraser, stretches back to Humphrey of Kilpatrick in the 13^th century. Unfortunately, the answer at present is, “we don’t know.” The reason we don’t know is that we have no point of reference in the genetic tree more recent than Humphrey of Kilpatrick himself, who is the ancestor not only of the Luss line but of all other Calhouns in E-Y16733. The specific male line of the Luss family that began with Humphrey of Kilpatrick in 1240 ended in 1718 with the death of Humphrey Colquhoun of Luss, 5^th Baronet.

The only guess I would hazard to make based on the genetic data is that FT350465 probably hews more closely to the Luss lineage than FT32806. The Colquhouns of Luss were upper-class landowners in Scotland, and FT350465 includes two upper-class landowning Colhoun families from Ireland, one from Crosh, County Tyrone and the other from Taughboyne, County Donegal. Money begets money, as they say.

I and many other researchers have been working to build an evidence-based pedigree between a living Calhoun and someone from the pre-1718 Luss lineage that can serve as a “gold standard,” a frame of reference for all E-Y16733 Y-DNA testers. However, to my knowledge this has not yet been accomplished. I hope this blog will contribute to that effort in some way.

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Once again, special thanks to Paul Calhoun for critical reading of this post and helpful edits.

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