More About The Covenanters, Religion of Our Miller Ancestors

"Signing the Covenant"

This Ulster Historical Foundation article below corroborates the difficulty many of us have found in searching for our Miller Covenanter ancestors (use the search box, below right, to find other posts dealing with our Covenanter ancestors).  I also did not find anything relevant to our Miller's at the referenced "rparchives" site mentioned below.  Even though our Millers and Bradfords remain elusive as ever, this article sheds light on this on this interesting, albeit obscure group of people.

" Though it is over 250 years since the signing of the Covenants of 1638 and 1643, the word Covenanter still has significance. Covenanter has been used as a general term to describe Presbyterians, though this article is focussed on its application to the Reformed Presbyterian Church. A great many people in the United States are the descendants of eighteenth-century emigrants of Covenanter background. Emigration was not confined to the eighteenth century, of course, and many Reformed Presbyterians left Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to seek a new life in another part of the world.

"How difficult is it to trace Covenanter roots? It is well known that there are major obstacles to overcome in the pursuit of Irish ancestors. Researching Covenanter ancestors is especially difficult for a number of reasons. First of all, there is the paucity of Reformed Presbyterian records, such as registers of births, marriages and burials. This is discussed in more detail below.

"Secondly, there are various categories of record from which Covenanters were excluded, or rather excluded themselves, because of their religious beliefs and in particular their views on the state. They did not vote and so will not appear in freeholders’ registers. They were opposed to the payment of tithes for the support of the Church of Ireland clergy, though to what extent they were able to evade the tithe collectors is unclear.

"They do not seem to have made regularly wills that were probated as that would have meant recognising the authority of the Church of Ireland which had responsibility for all testamentary matters before 1858. Of course, as is revealed below in the discussion of the earliest session book of the Antrim congregation, there were those who broke the rules and were censured for it.

"Researching Covenanter ancestors who emigrated to America in the eighteenth century is particularly problematic. A close reading of Jean Stephenson’s meticulous Scotch-Irish migration to South Carolina will show that in very few instances is it possible to identify the Irish place of origin of the hundreds of families, many of the them Covenanter, who emigrated from Ulster in 1772.

"While the majority of these emigrants were probably from north Antrim, it is impossible to be more precise than this for all but a handful of the emigrants. One exception is Hugh McMaster, ‘late of parish of Ballymoney, Co. Antrim’, whose will of 1787 refers to his brother John back in Ballymoney and includes a bequest of money to a society of Covenanters in America. Careful sifting of records in America might reveal further references to places of origin in Ireland of Covenanter ancestors.

"An initiative that merits attention is that of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America to digitise their older publications, such as the magazines The Covenanter and Reformed Presbyterian, both founded in the nineteenth century, and make these available online (www.rparchives.org). Obituaries notices were carried in these publications and, if the deceased was from Ireland, these will often include the individual’s place of origin on the island."

Source:  http://www.ancestryireland.com/irish-presbyterianism/researching-covenanter-ancestors/http://www.ancestryireland.com/irish-presbyterianism/researching-covenanter-ancestors/ 

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Ballindrait - The Home of Our Miller's and the famous Reverend Traill

Now that we know for sure that our William Miller’s forefathers came from in or near the village of Ballindrait (which is near the larger town of Lifford in the Laggan Presbytery, County Donegal, Ireland), it is interesting to learn the history of this area. The Miller’s no doubt came to this area of Northern Ireland from their homeland in Scotland, along with many thousands of others, for the “planned process of colonisation (sic)” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Scots_people) of Ulster.  Therefore, it is of interest to read about the history or this era.  

From the Book In The Days Of The Laggan Presbytery we read:  “The place that had the distinction of giving both a local habitation and a name to the second Presbytery established in Ireland, is not, as might have been expected, situated in either of the ultra Presbyterian Counties of Antrim or Down, but in dark and distant Donegal. It should be remembered, however, that there are two Donegal’s — an outer and an inner. The former, which is almost wholly Roman Catholic, and from which the County to a large extent takes its character and complexion in the eye of the public, consists of the extensive mountainous districts that lie along the western seaboard, and at some points run far inland. The latter consists of the more flat and fertile country that lies between the mountains and the river Foyle and the eastern boundary of the County. It is largely Protestant, and from a very early period in history has been known as the Laggan, i.e., the low or level country. In the days of the Ulster Plantation, from 1607 onwards, this district, on account of its fertility and also from the fact that the undertakers or persons who obtained the grant of estates in it, were chiefly Scotchmen, was largely peopled by immigrants from Scotland, whose descendants, unto this day, till the fields their forefathers then acquired, and keep to the Presbyterian principles they brought with them from their native land” (source:  https://archive.org/stream/indayslagganpre00leckgoog/indayslagganpre00leckgoog_djvu.txt).   

The River Foyle

You will remember from previous posts that we know our Miller’s were part of the Reverend Traill’s congregation in the village of Ballindrait.  This brave man is mentioned in the history of Laggan Presbytery: “Mr. Trail of Ballindrait was, as is shown by his evidence before the Privy Council regarding the Fast kept by the Presbytery in 1681, an able and honest man. When asked why he had not taken the oath of supremacy (which required any person taking public or church office to swear allegiance to the King of England as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and failure to do so was to be treated as treasonable), he replied that he had never been asked to take it, adding "that he considered it juggling with the King and much more with God to take an oath that is capable of a sound sense, and yet to keep that sound sense in his mind, but let the sense be written down together with the oath, and that will clear the matter." " Besides," said he, " I lie under the punishment imposed by law for refusing the oath of supremacy." When one of the Committee asked — "What is that?" Mr. Trail replied, "I want all preferment." Whereupon Lord Lanesborough asked, "Would you take it if they would give you a good benefice ? " and Mr. Trail replied, " No, my Lord, I have not said that yet. I am content to be as I am without that."

(to be continued)

Our Miller's of Lifford, County Donegal, Ireland

RIVER COTTAGES, LIFFORD
(Source: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/
~fantham/lifford_hall.jpg)

Below is a copy of an actual 1706 document held at the Public Records Office of Ireland (PRONI) and graciously made available through the Ulster Ancestry organization.  

This letter actually lists David Miller, the grandfather of our William Miller and father of Abraham Miller. David was living in Newcastle County, Pennsylvania [later Delaware], and apparently he, his family and friends were appealing to Presbytery in Scotland, their "mother church," for aid in building their congregation there in America.

This is a critical document because it contains the "motherlode" of all genealogical research--the identification of where our immigrant ancestors came from! We read that "...the greatest number of us [were] born and educated in (sic) Irland under the ministry of one William Traill, a (sic) presbiterian minister formerly of Lifford, Co. Donegal [Ireland]..." We not only learn that the Miller's were from Northern Ireland, thus being part of the Scots-Irish Ulster plantations, but we can actually pinpoint the town they hailed from in Ireland! Jackpot!

As you examine the signers of this letter, you find not only the name of our ancestor, David Miller, but also his brother, Alexander Miller, as well as Abraham Emott (a brother-in-law of David and Alexander, having married their sister, Jane), and Abraham's brother, John Emott.

So our Miller ancestors came from Lifford in County Donegal, Northern Ireland! For more information about their connection to the Reverend Traill, enter "Traill" in the search box of this blog.

Here is a youtube video that will give you a taste of what this village looks like now! Wouldn't it be lovely to be able to visit there in person? Someday... (it might not come through as a hot link, so you''ll have to cut and paste this website address into your server's address box):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-0OjxxnID8

More on the Covenanters in Ireland

Ballindrait, County Donegal, Ireland

I am still working on the third post about our Miller ancestors, who were Presbyterian Covenanters living in Ulster (Northern Ireland), and whether or not they fled to Holland because of religious persecution. Remember, the Allen Family Records says that Abraham Miller, William's father, was born in Holland.

Till that post is ready, here is part of an interesting article (though not particularly good news genealogically-speaking) about the Covenanters in Ireland.

It contains a link to a map showing where the current day congregations live. Two congregations are close to where our Millers lived in the Ballindrait area between Strabane and Letterkenny.

"Of the early history of the Covenanters in Ireland very little is known, save that the denomination was small and scattered. It was not until the latter part of the eighteenth century that congregations began to be organised and ministers were ordained. Very few Reformed Presbyterian records have survived from the eighteenth century. This can be partly explained by the paucity of ministers at this time; many baptisms and marriages were performed by visiting ministers from Scotland and there is little evidence of proper records being kept of these events. Congregations were divided into societies, composed of several families living within a short distance of each other.

For background information on this denomination see The Covenanters in Ireland: A History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland by Adam Loughridge (Belfast, 1984). For information on ministers in the Reformed Presbyterian Church see Fasti of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland compiled and edited by Adam Loughridge (Belfast, 1970). A recent article on researching Covenanter ancestors is ‘The Origins of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland with some comments on its records’ by William Roulston, published in Familia: Ulster Genealogical Review (2008), pages 86-110. The website of this denomination is..{ http://rpc.org/directory/ ]. This includes a map showing the location of [current] congregations." (source:  http://www.ancestryireland.com/irish-presbyterianism/presbyterian-ancestors/seceders-non-subscribers-and-covenanters/ )