Time-line 1.0: The Muster Rolls of 1630's
I am not going to repeat the data set out in the chapter of the First Settlers, but rather set out a map of where the various McKinley men-at-arms were based as per the Muster Roll of 1631. I have gone through all the other Muster Rolls extant from that time and find only two other McKinley's in the area, both in Londonderry (Lancelot McKinly in Aghadowey, Londonderry and John McKenly in Londonderry itself. Given the geographic proximity I include them into the family grouping. (Lancelot, I assume is a mis-spelling of Lachlan) Hence the picture in 1631 for Donegal is as set out below.
As hopefully can be seen in the text box, another McKinley has turned up in Raphoe: listed under William Steward, Laird of Dunduff is one ffyndley McKirley. Given the Christian name of ffyndley, plus the fact that the McKirley family is non-existant, I am assuming that this is another ffyndley McKinley.
Now ensues the War of the Three Kingdoms and the Cromwellian ethnic cleansing, which together ran from 1641 through to 1659. It was a period of massive upheaval across the country and hence there is no certainty that those that start off in one place ended up in the same pace at the end of the period. We do have various records of events within these dates however. In 1657 we have two marriages in Londonderry town: this was the first real year of peace and advantage was taken by the ecclesiastical authorities to make sure that a number of the common-law marriages of the war years were sanctified. Records for that year talk of weddings happening on a daily basis, and sometimes multiple weddings. Hence we have James McKinley, Church of Ireland, of Arguile Kyrach, marrying Ellin Lyttle of the same parish at the church of St Columb's in Londonderry town. Arguile Kyrach later became called Errigal Keerogue and is close-by the town of Clougher on the Tyrone/Monaghan border. These two were married on 8th June 1657. Five months later one John McKinley of Clendermott, Londonderry marries Margaret Deveny, also of Clendermott (essentially a parish area where Altnagelvin Hospital is today).
I have found no other mentions of McKinleys in any other counties prior to 1657, other than the above mentioned. hence we have three groupings: Barony of Raphoe, Barony of Bannagh and Boylagh, and the environs of Londonderry, which all together comprise of eleven McKinley males of arms-bearing age. But I do have one entry in 1659 of one Edmond McKenly in Carnteel, Co Tyrone. More of him later.
Time-line 2.0: The Hearth Money Roll of 1665/66
The war ended and the troops were by and large paid off with confiscated land. The Catholic population has fallen by over a half and in many counties no labour was to be had. The newly restored Charles II was desperately short of cash and hence a tax was levied on every household of the realm in respect of the number of stone-hearths in the house (typically one). This is our next time line. In the first place I will attempt to trace the destinations of our eleven McKinley men-at-arms. Secondly I will list the new comers, because it is at this stage that we get the first notice of McKinleys and McKinlays settling in other parts of the country - most noticeably Tyrone and Antrim. Some of these are definitely Donegal diaspora, but others are newcomers.
Donegal McKinleys
Let's start off with the easy one: Barony of Boylagh & Bannagh, where we had but one McKinley man at arms for the Earl of Annandale (erstwhile blacksmith to James VI). In the Muster Rolls of 1631 John McKinley is listed as a man-at-arms and in the Hearth Money Roll of 1665 we have four McKinley's listed as paying hearth tax, which implies four distinct households, in the parish of Killaghtee. They are named at John M'Kinlay, and then Robert, Thomas and John again. It is fair to assume that the first named John probably fathered the other three. Within the listing there are no clues as to which townlands they lived in, but as the map below shows, this group lived on the southern coast of Donegal.
But poor Dunckan was not all alone up there: in the next parish south, Killigarvan, we have Robert M'Kinlay listed in the hearth money rolls. In the Muster Rolls we had had two distinct Robert's: one was a man at arms for the Duke of Lennox, and the other for Alexander Steward. Quite which of the two we have here is unclear so far.
Finally we have a grouping of four more McKinley's within the Raphoe area of mid-east Donegal, bordering on Country Tyrone. In the Parish of Taghboyne appear Finlay M'Kinlay an one Pattrick M'Kinlay. Then in the neighbouring parish to the south of them, we have Robert M'Kinlay and John M'Kinley listed in Clonleigh Parish and specifically in the Killigordon Estate (this helps to mark them later on). It is noteworthy that in the Muster Rolls we had Robert and John as men at arms together for Mr Alexander Steward and the coincidence of two with the same names being listed as householders in the same parish twenty five years later suggests to me that these are those same two (brothers?). This means that the Robert up in Killigarvan is from the Duke of Lennox group and the ffyndley just to the north of him, from that Lennox team. This would suggest that the second ffyndley, the man at arms of William Steward is the Taghboyne man. Pattrick is clearly a second generation McKinley.
Londonderry McKinleys
The hearth money rolls for Londonderry are all but non-existant and our three Derry McKinley's are tough to trace. No sign recurs at all of Lancelot, or Lachlann or anyother "L" variant. Of the two that married At St Columb's Church in 1657 we do know that James and Ellen probably went back to Tyrone as a large cluster of McKinleys grows down there over the following decades and centuries. As for John McKinley, who married Margaret Deveny, my assumption is that they stayed in the area as we do have a record of the church burial of one Jane McKenlee, widow of John McKenlee who was buried at St Columb's on 31st May 1673. Now obviously our John had married a Margaret back in 1657, but with a high mortality rate amongst the womenfolk, this Jane may well have been his second wife. On December 12th 1698 we have the burial of one Thomas McKinly and then later still we have another burial, this time of a William McKinley in Derry in 1702. An assumption here would be that John McKinley married twice, first to Margaret and then to Jane, and that he had at least two sons: Thomas and William (both Christian names that reverberate down through the centuries. Note also that all of these McKinleys are Church of Ireland: no Presbyterians yet.
A Sligo McKinley
The Hearth Money Roll for Sligo (1665) has one John McKenlly being taxed in the parish of Templeboy down in Sligo. This fellow was one of the soldiers paid off with confiscated land (as they all were), but the location of the land is very telling and says a lot about this McKinley (I have to note a certain bias here as my mother, Maev McKinley, is of Sligo stock). This area of Sligo was used as a buffer between the the province of Connaght, where Cromwell had expelled all the Catholics too in the early 1650's, and the route up to Ulster. Essentially the coastal route up the past Killala Bay and across to Sligo town and Donegal was the main route that any rebellion army would have to take. So Cromwell and his successors planted the area with one of the last regiments to be disbanded: Coote's Regiment of Horse (aka "Coote's Horse" - more later on this entire episode). The regiment was planted troop by troop, side by side, with the officers being planted in the key strategic points. These officers were the bulk of what were termed the "tituladoes" of the area, i.e. those that held title to the land. The poor soldier essentially ended up as a tenant for eternity of his officer. So in the case of John, he was esconced at Donaghintraine and his landlord was one Captain J Wingfield. The Wingfield family had been soldiering in Ireland since Elizabethan times, and the elder brother of this Captain J was later to become the 1st Viscount Powerscourt.
Given the dispora caused by the wars and the fact that this man is clearly a soldier, one has to ask whether this might not be the younger of the two John McKinley's we lost in Donegal. There is evidence that the Lennox men-at-arms first joined the Laggan Army and that then merged into the Parliamentary Army in the late 1640's. Coote's Horse was one of the foremost fighting units and one of the last to be demobbed of the Parliamentary Army. There is no sign of him after this, so like many of his companions he probably sold the land and moved off elsewhere. For what it is worth, I suspect he moved a few miles, over to Mayo as we have a Mayo-branch extant from the early 1800's onwards, but there are no earlier records in County Mayo to work from.
Tyrone McKinleys
I mentioned earlier the appearance of one Edmond McKenly is the Hearth Roll Tax of 1659 in Carnteel, Tyrone. "Edmond" is such a non-Scots name that one has to wonder at the transcription of both the Christian name and the surname. Two more "McKinleys" appear at this stage in Tyrone: Brian MaKinley at Kildress and Patrick McKanly at Killedowan. These three are a bit challenging and at this stage I am parking them to one side as I can find no likely origin for them. What is fact, however, is that in 1657 James McKenley married Ellin Little and both gave their address as being Arguile Kyrach in Tyrone. Also we get a spate of weddings and baptisms of McKinleys of one description or another in the early part of the next century in the area around Clougher, i.e. the south-eastern area of Country Tyrone. I suspect that both Brian and Patrick and for that matter Edmond, had little to do with the Donegal group given the completely different namings, and either therefore represent a new group or simple mis-spellings. Edmond McKenly's location in Carnteel, however, does suggest that he was the forbearer of some of the later Tyrone families. As for the Tyrone McKinleys of the next century: they became a key source of New World McKinley's, with direct descendants today in the US and in Canada.
Antrim McKinleys - newcomers pre 1669
The hearth money roll of North Antrim is an eye-opener for two reasons: one the one hand all of a sudden we have thirteen McKinley households appearing, and secondly they hadn't been there in the 1641. A further item is to note that their Christian names are completely distinct from the Donegal families. The map below sets out the various parishes: the ones we are focussed on are Billy (#19), Ballintoy (#8) and Ramoan (#68) which are all along the north coast of Antrim. We have eight McKinley households in this area:
Daniel McKinley: townland Ballymoy, parish Billy
Daniel McKenly: townland Ballintoy demesne, parish Ballintoy
Robert McKenly: same
John McKinley: townland Carnsampson, parish Ramoan
Daniell McKinley: townland Carneatly, parish Ramoan
Gilchrist McKinly: townland Loughan, parish Culfeightrin (#27)
Widow McKnly: townland Carnkirn, parish Grange of Drumtillagh
Malcum McKinly, townland Kilpatrick, parish Rathlin Island
The second group will warm the hearts of all President McKinley fans, but no James the Tropper, I am afraid to say. The next five are all in the Conogher / Derrykeighan area slightly to the south of the first grouping. Given the Christian names involved it is fair to assume they are related.
Daniell McKinily: townland Conogher, parish Ballymoney
Widow Kinly: townland Ballycreagher, parish Loughguile
John McKinlagh: townland Ballyloughbeg, parish Billy
Malcullum McKinly: townland Chathamhall, parish Derrykeighan
John McKinla: townland Tirkully, parish Layd.
Now for all you PoTUS fans out there, the important fellow is Malcullum. James the Trooper was said to have settled at Chathamhall and that the lands were given to him for his part in the guiding the Williamite troops in the Battle of the Boyne (at the ripe age of 19 !!). Well one thing is now for sure: he was by no means the first McKinley into Ulster, nor of the first into Antrim - there was a full generation in Antrim before his day and two generations in Donegal. But one thing is now proven, and that is that there was a McKinley family living and farming in Chathamhall.
Timeline 3: births, marriages and deaths 1670-1740
to be continued
