Re: Information on Gartland family history
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Re: Information on Gartland family history
John Gartland 2/24/08
G'day, Australian brother in the name of Gartland. You happen to share the name of my since-past grandfather here in the States. I came across your posting in my own search, which has been going on for quite some time now. I was able to trace back to our first Gartland in the U.S. by the name of Levi Gartland (early 1800s). Quite a history this name has made, even in Uncle Sam's short history, but I won't bore you with that. I was able to get back to about 1260 in Ireland on my own and I hit a wall. The family has always split all the way back between siblings -- Catholic vs. Protestant. I didn't know that until a few years ago, but even now, I, who was raised Protestant by a former Catholic whose siblings were split down the middle, am facing my sister who has chosen since our father's recent death to convert to Catholicism. However, we will be the first to not bitterly divide that I know of. My Father's family disowned him after he was kicked out of the Catholic church at the age of 12 for asking why he should bow before the visiting Cardinal to kiss the ring if Christians are to bow before no-one but God. Supposedly, the very war between the 2 factions today has much to do with the Gartlands. There have been something like 67 Gartlands imprisoned for IRA activity since the organization's birth, I hear. No matter -- you wanted information about your name. Upon asking an Irish historian for answers, he swore that the name was not Irish because of the "t" in the middle. When he went and checked his facts, he found that "Gartland" is one of the oldest names known in Gaelic, formerly spelled "Gernon". Other translations are Garland, Garlland, Garman, Garmin, Gartley... You can add the "Mc" in there, too, because that apparently appeared and disappeared all through the years. The O'Neill clan is the biggest and one of the oldest, but Gartland goes back before then to an unknown date. It is known that Gartlands had a sizeable amount of land in the province of Killincoole, Northern Ireland. There is much history involving the splitting of the Scottish Queens, the backing of Richard of Orange and the dubbing of the 3 brave knights. Those you can search on your own because the explanation is lengthy. Before all of that, like most of the Irish and Scots, the Gartlands came from Norway. There were Gartland Islands off the coast of Norway and their Viking royalty became grand enough to attract the attention of jolly old England. Apparently, trade was established and the mid-point was what is known as Ireland. After so many years of trade, Northern Ireland began to be populated by Gartlands and others from Scandinavia. There is still a Gartland's Pub in Dublin, I hear. Anyway, I hope this can help your search. I am now just searching the roots in Scotland to see what kind of matches come up. I'll let you know if I find anything useful. God Bless.
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Re: Information on Gartland family history
sharon gartland 12/18/11