James Lewis Armstrong, Jr. - :Lineage from John Lewis Armstrong to William (Christie's Will) Armstron was messed by a member.

Erica Howton, there are pages and pages and pages of Armstrong marriages in Ireland near Fermanagh. They cannot be all from one family because there are many many contemporaneous duplicates as well. This is, in part, why I haven't tackled building Armstrong families from the Clogher records - I generally can succeed at that only when there are a small number of families involved and the children can be naturally associated by naming and dates.

Pretty much all web trees for Cynthia's "James" claim County Fermanagh as his place of origin, and there is absolutely no lack of Armstrong families he could have come from there, so there is no good reason to doubt that claim. The problem is that the pedigree we have for Fermanagh Armstrongs cannot be complete. It simply cannot, given the number of families that are represented in the records which we have no idea how they fit in.

*Some* families are pretty complete - the ones who emigrated and brought all their children. The ones in Ireland were built from patchy records though and we must accept those will have children that aren't mentioned in the pedigrees. There is one whole branch that isn't mentioned at all, in fact, that seems to have generated many of the Clogher-area cousin marriages. I currently have a start at this hung off of William son of Edward of Terwhinney, because naming conventions suggests William was the patriarch's given name. Many of the non-pedigree Armstrongs could have come from that branch, but due to its distance to MY branch, the closer DNA matches cannot - they'd be 9th+ cousins given that and the DNA at that level is fraught. So I am personally trying to list DNA matches descended from immediate relatives of John Joseph that I've hooked in over the last three years based on DNA evidence. These hook-ins might move if there were nearby parental options available, but until then they are more likely correct than not.

For Cynthia's James, though, I have zero evidence of a DNA relationship, so I believe her James likely came from that branch. If I know his family members' names, I can take a guess at his placement.

So what I propose is that we validate the *core* tree and try not to peel off children that aren't in the pedigree, unless they aren't there for DNA reasons, or we have evidence they belong elsewhere. Just note in the About section about why they are where they are. (Generally, I have already done this but I will go back and make sure of it.)

Also, FWIW, "Sir" John of Brookesborough is assumed to be the father of John Joseph in GENI. That was the situation before I became involved and I have seen no evidence that it is wrong. But I would like to carefully evaluate "Sir John"s children if there is a description of them anywhere I can reference. I believe it is incomplete but also that some children may be hung there that just came in from incautious sources. If there is a source identified we can agree on, I'll take charge of that if you like.

For Cynthia's James, I'm proposing to build out family that is not covered by pedigrees or DNA based on Clogher marriage records and find likely matches for parentage. These would likely be descendants of William Armstrong , whose descendants are not covered by pedigree and who we must build out from records alone. Is it forbidden to attach to a marriage that exists in records that lines up in dates and name?

Got it.
I'll rephrase the proposal, then. I propose to do my level best to work out families based on the marriage records, in Ireland. If we find a family that looks promising for James, we'll propose a link in the "About" section, for further research and hopefully something that might confirm it. Work for you?

Working on it. Doing all Armstrong marriages up to about 1735. Pooped out now after completing the "J"s. Tomorrow will try for the Roberts, Thomases, and Williams. Stay tuned.

Erica, you may find it interesting what is there so far. Start here:

Unknown Armstrong

I've grouped these by families with eldest male child indicating grandfather. This grouping may well change when William, Robert, and Thomas is done but already you can see there are tons of families present - and there have to be, because there are a lot of contemporaneous people with the same names. James and John and Elizabeth and Jane are especially widespread and, while there may be cases of remarriage, there still need to be at least 7-10 families as far as I can tell.

Now, what's interesting is how this overlaps Edward of Terwinney's family, here:

Edward ‘from the Border’ Armstrong

There is definitely a rough similarity - but the fates of the people already present are laid out fully for brother James, not at all for William, and partially for John. So I delved into "John of Agravea", and discovered there are problems with how he's there in Geni. Web trees basically confuse him with what sounds like a different John. But there really was a marriage between a John Armstrong and a Katherine Beard in Londonderry on the date claimed. A son of that marriage could have gone to Maryland as claimed, but... if John married in Londonderry, would he have returned to Clogher? And the dates refuse to work out for him. He's likely born a lot sooner than 1622 to have a son born in 1650, and yet this insists Edward of Terwinny had him when he was 18 - simply not done in Ireland at the time, and the naming is wrong too.

In other words, I think he ought to be disconnected, given a birth year c. 1615, and a different John born around 1632 or so created in this family in his stead. Thoughts?

John Armstrong of Templemore

(I added the of Agravea after noting his place of death, and then found that web trees have that John in a wholly different place in the tree entirely.)

Although, I think it may be the case that the Maryland John that is apparently the point of all this stuff is a sibling of the James Armstrong Cynthia Curtis has been trying to find a home for. Interesting.

Here is the Maryland John Armstrong: John Armstrong, Sr. . I am disconnecting him from his (obviously incorrect) parents.

Also disconnected John Armstrong of Templemore from Edward, and left the marriage in Londonderry. If there is evidence that the John who married Katherine Beard there was Edward's son, pedigree or otherwise, I would be happy to restore it.

I completed the family group for Mary Emerson today.
Her husband Henry had been confused for Isaac, my ancestor, in a letter. She is where she belongs now as the wife of my grandfather’s brother but DAR has no maiden name for her and her father is seen as Samuel but of course there are at least two Samuel Armstrong

Erica Howton, I just compared DNA overlaps with Cynthia and it turns out she's absolutely and 100% certainly a Northern Ireland Armstrong. She just needs to figure out how. ;-)

https://www.geni.com/path/Cynthia-Curtis-A183502-US7875087+is+relat...
Top down, bottom up.
I will work more on Isaac soon.
He had been confused for his brother Henry. Henry married Armstrong.
There should be more family intermarriage I would think.
I will try to locate the book that was the basis for the notes I was working from.
Many of these records were destroyed in the Civil War.

https://www.geni.com/path/Cynthia-Curtis-A183502-US7875087+is+relat...
Sarah Webber Camp Johnson Forsythe is my paternal side brick wall. Wouldn’t you know.
At any rate, they are looking good and getting sourced and cleaned up and MPd. And I was actually pleased to see the line disconnected after asking about Mary Armstrong here in 2023. It’s certainly not a speedy process
:)

I should say, the wife of Isaacs brother rather than grandpa as I still have to revisited my “bottom up”.
I have not double checked the Emerson branch that I learned about in 1977.
This is part of what I have been doing lately— going back over my closer grands and getting their family groups completed.

My James Emerson was seen as son of Isaac Emerson and Mary Armstrong.
I will need to look for proof of which father vs which mother.
Isaac and wife Williams or Henry Emerson and Mary Armstrong.
All I know for sure is Henry is the husband of Mary.

Progress report on marriage transcription project: I'm done with the Roberts. I will do the Thomases and the Williams and then do my best to reorganize everything into family groups, with the usual caveats, especially given that there are Armstrongs here who seem to belong in other parts of the tree, e.g. under Francis. I'll call these Armstrongs out one at a time so we can discuss a likely disposition for the stranger ones.

For the stranger ones, I'm looking at the descendant report for the patriarch, here:

https://www.geni.com/list/descendants/323754617060007800#7

I can then simply search for matches for some of these marriages, and have some confidence that I'm not missing anything.

The first one I looked at was the marriage for Martin Armstrong (only one recorded). I discovered that there was severe date breakage amongst the family of Alexander Armstrong, and dealt with that, also pulling in a Pennsylvania line that referenced a patriarch named Martin. Everything lines up beautifully now that we're not skipping generations. ;-)

Anyhow, the second problem is what to do with: Francis Armstrong . I excluded matches that were born in Maryland. I did find a family in the descendant report that works for him datewise, but lived in County Offaly and then Dublin, which isn't out of the question I guess for a Clogher marriage, but... have a look and let me know if this is crazy. If it is, we need to put him somewhere else, and an unknown descendant of the earliest Francis in the tree would be an obvious place.

I'm having quite a bit of success grouping Armstrongs by families they married. For example, the Johnstons appear several times in the marriage records of this period, and it looks like they actually constitute a related family. One of the Armstrongs who married a Johnston was named Matthew - and this is interesting because this is exceptionally rare in the Armstrong lineage in Fermanagh. In fact, the only place the name appears is as a grandson of John Joseph Armstrong. I therefore believe now that John Joseph likely had a brother Matthew. The Johnstons so married perfectly fill out a Johnston family I knew was in the area by other marriages, and it hangs together beautifully.

A similar placement can be found for similar reasons for the marriage of Andrew Armstrong and a Finlay daughter. John Joseph named a known son Andrew so it makes a lot of sense that he had a brother of the same name, and he also had a daughter that married into the Finlays. Once again, all fits together beautifully.

I left reasoning at length in the "About" section of both Armstrong profiles.

Building out the children of Edward of Terwinney is also in progress, but that will take longer. The strategy I am using there is to identify early male Armstrongs and hypothesize a grandfather of the same name. This leads to a lot of families that unfortunately don't give us much clue as to the other members within. But at least we know we need the following sons of Edward: William, John, James, and Thomas. Now, there's a problem because James is already taken - he emigrated. There may be room for sons left behind in Ireland but not sure about that yet. I did not find any other James Armstrong who was undeveloped b.c.1647 however.

There are a few more family groupings I can explore that will help. There is an Irvin grouping and there is an Irvine grouping. I think these are related families but not the same; perhaps as different as Johnson and Johnston.

Stay tuned. This is going to take some time.

Ok, in that case we get to move his sons away. Which siblings do you think are uncovered?

We've got now William, John, James, Thomas, Robert, and there will be a Joseph too. I do need to know the father to get the children right, but in the interim I'll take the family and hang it under "unknown". I'll leave Edward's son William and his wife and port their children to another so as to leave Edward alone.

Ok, here's the temporary "unknown" profile. Please feel free to merge it with whichever Armstrong brother stayed in Fermanagh and whose life remains a mystery. Bonus if you can determine they settled on the eastern side of Fermanagh near Five Mile Town, because that's where Clogher is.

I'll be continuing tomorrow.