This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.
Surnames: CONNELLY CAVIN DICKSON MURDOCK BROWN WHITESIDE
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/UGI.2ACEB/130
Message Board Post:
My second great-grandfather, William Cavin Connelly, was born about 1822 prob. in a part
of Virginia that later became West Virginia (being myself of Confederate sympathies, I
won't go into how THAT was brought about).
William married one Elizabeth Sterrett Brown, b. abt. 1831, a dtr of Allen Brown of
Allegheny Co., PA (Pittsburgh and immediate area) and Catherine Whiteside. Some surnames
in Elizabeth's near ancestry include Gemmill (this family from Ayrshire, Scotland),
and Porter (from Burt, Co. Donegal, in Ulster). Cathereine's father, Peter Whiteside,
fought on the Patriot side in the Revolution.
That William Cavin Connelly was Protestant, and probably Presbyterian, is suggested among
other things by the ties to Scotland and to Ulster. My great-grandfather, William's
son Frank connelly 1865?-1901 married a DICKSON, known to be Scotch-Irish (or an
"Ulster Scot") and Presbyterian whose family emigrated from Co. Tyrone in the
north of Ireland; his mother-in-law was Margaret Murdock, also an Ulster Scot, also
Presbyterian. Also, emigration from Ireland prior to about 1840 was largely Protestant,
and from Ulster. The PORTERS are thought to have been in Donegal back to 1590 and the
name suggests Anglo-Irish, rather than Plantation Scottish, origins; nevertheless, I
don't sense in my maternal line anything nearer to a "Papist" than the
occasional Episcopalian.
Frank, wife Elizabeth, and sons William, Jr., Frank, Eugene, and 2 others whose given
names escape me at the omoment are in the Pittsburgh, Census for 1880. The three sons
named all were involved at one time or another in journalism; all wrote to some reknown
about the Johnstown Flood of 1889.
Might any CAVINS with ancestors in (western) Virginia have possible ties to my William
Cavin Connelly, Sr., born abt. 1822?
Geoffrey Pope
White Plains, NY