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I am attempting to write my family histories in a narrative, and this includes my Hacketts. It is too long to post here but if anyone is interested then they can find the full version at http://ibelongtobridgeton.blogspot.com/2008/03/my-hackett-family-history-on-going.html
Introduction
Genealogy, or to use a better term, Family History, is a fascinating hobby. I think it is best described as a never- ending jigsaw. It can be very frustrating as often information is elusive and luck is required in addition to hard work. For me Family History has to be a lot more than just finding out the names of direct ancestors. The real joy is in finding out how they lived, and what happened in their lifetimes. Effectively then Family History is social history as it applied to my ancestry and its almost unique to me, and only shared in full with my brother.
For most ordinary people it becomes difficult to trace ancestors born before 1750. This is purely because in many cases records beyond that don't exist. Civil Registration, i.e. Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates started in England in 1837, in Scotland in 1855 and in Ireland a little later. Beyond that period we rely mainly on Church Parish records. Censuses are also a great source of information and the first census to provide names of ordinary people by address was in 1841. However the information requested on that census was minimal compared to later censuses. Public access is only allowed to censuses after 100 years has passed, so now in 2008, the latest census available to the public is that of 1901. Few Highland parishes kept records of births and marriages before 1750, and it is rare in Scotland for churches to keep records of deaths. In some ways then it can be a matter of luck, depending on where your ancestors were born. For Ireland most records were destroyed and I am half Irish by blood
To give an example of how difficult it could be to trace an ancestor, consider someone in the future trying to trace my life history, and starting only with my birth certificate. It would show born 1944 in Duke St Hospital and home address Colbert St. Bridgeton, Glasgow. The first census I would appear on would be 1951 when I lived in the Gorbals of Glasgow and it would show I had a brother born 1949. The next census would show me living in Eastwood Glasgow in 1961. If someone got that far they would have had to search a lot of the Glasgow records and it would not have been easy.
Would they then have found my marriage certificate in Birmingham in 1966? Would they then think of searching Newton Heath in Manchester on the 1971 census when I would then show as married and having three children? Only on the next three censuses in 1981, 1991 and 2001 I would show as living at this address now in Failsworth.
One thing Family History does help with, certainly in my case, is tolerance. When I look at my ancestry I found that its very possible my ancestors were on opposing factions in the past. Most people have heard of the massacre of Glencoe when the Campbells slaughtered the McDonalds, well I have both Campbells and McDonalds in my ancestry. Some from Clan McIntosh fought on the side of the Jacobites at Culloden, but I don’t think any of mine, but again it was the Campbells who fought on the side of the Government. When Bonny Prince Charlie brought his army to Glasgow it was probable that my Horn, Lang and Craig ancestors from Glasgow viewed them as savage Highlanders, as in the main, the Lowlanders were on the side of the Government, and they certainly did not want a Catholic Monarchy restored. More than likely both the Langs and the Horns originated in Germany or the Netherlands. I have ancestors from London who would have thought all Scots uncouth savages. Until and including my paternal grandfathers generation all of my Argyll ancestry spoke English only as a second language and they would have viewed the rest as Sassenachs (southerners).
I have the most Scottish of names, Duncan Craig McIntosh, however by blood, if not by birth, I am probably 50% Irish, and I also have around 12.5% English blood to add to the mixture. My mothers’ ancestry reads like an Irish telephone book. Even although both my maternal grandparents were born in Scotland and also two of my maternal Great Grandparents, until my parents married my mothers ancestors all married within other Irish immigrant families. In fact for some of my cousins, and their children and grandchildren, this is still the case and they have not married outside of the Catholic Irish community until this day. Some, and maybe all, would consider themselves as Irish as they are Scottish, even although they had not been Irish born for generations.
Largely due to An Gorta Mor, (Literally the Big Hunger) or as it is more commonly known, the Potato Famine, all of my Irish ancestry had arrived in Scotland by 1850-1855. Most of my Irish ancestors were Irish Catholic but my McTear line were Irish Protestant, and maybe even Orange, until my Great Grandmother Elizabeth McTear married the Catholic Martin Hackett in Glasgow in 1877.
THE HACKETTS
We trace the Hacketts back to around between 1740-1760 to the parish of Templecarn, Pettigo in Fermanagh. This is a little town on the border of Donegal and Fermanagh in the Irish Lake District between Lough
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