Coming to America

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The tithe assessments were done in Dromore in 1834. There were four Michael McGuigans noted in four different townlands.

Tithe Applotment Books Parish of Dromore

Cornamucklagh Dromore Shanmullagh Glebe Letteree

McGuigan, Michl McGuigan, Michl McGuigan, Michl McGuigan, Michl

None of these townlands are very distant from each other. Dromore and Shanmullagh Glebe are adjacent townlands located in the center of the parish. Lettery is situated on the western border of the parish. Cornamucklagh is located in the eastern portion of the parish adjacent to Coyagh,Tattycor, and Drumderg, a small area where there was quite an assemblage of McGuigan families. Of the four Michaels living in Dromore, the one in Cornamucklagh seems to have the most potential. Several of the families in Pawtucket came from their homes in Coyagh and Cornamucklagh.

Tithe Applotment Books

Cornamucklagh Coyagh Drumderg Tatticor

McGuigan, Michl McGuigan, Nichs McGuigan, Thos McGuigan, Jas

McGuigan, Pat, Sr McGuigan, Patk McGuigan, Ann McGuigan, Bridget

McGuigan, Pat, Jr McGuigan, Thos McGuigan, Patk

McGuigan, Edwd McGuigan, Tery McGuigan, Owen

McGuigan, Thos McGuigan, Henry

McGuigan, Thos

The next major land valuation work, Griffith’s Primary Valuation, was completed in Tyrone about 1860. In the twenty-six years between the two valuations, there were changes in the names of those living on the old farms. Some had emigrated; some had died. The McGuigans leasing the lands at that time were brothers, sons, daughters, nieces, and nephews. Only one Michael was left in Dromore. He was living in Shanmullagh Glebe.

While the majority of farms in Dromore parish consisted of about sixteen acres, which was probably considerably less than ...

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...ight hit the fields and destroyed the crops, disaster ensued. In those terrible years, between 1846 and 1851, one million people died of starvation, malnutrition, typhus, recurring fever, dysentery and scurvy. Another million Irish citizens emigrated.

Such was the environment in which droves of Irish immigrants sought to better their lives and those of their children by fleeing their homeland with its disastrous potato famines, and economic, political and religious repression. There are today descendants of the Goodwin families living in the Pawtucket area. There is certainly every likelihood that living today in Tyrone are many distant cousins.

Tithe Applotment Books for Northern Ireland, ca. 1822—1937. Ireland: Land Commission. Parish of Dromore, Tyrone. FHL microfilm 258456.

. Gray, Peter. The Irish Famine. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1995.

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