Hi Greg!
As a fellow County Tyrone researcher of missing Ewing men, I am utterly
sympathetic. You have already gotten what I think are excellent suggestions
from the “listers”, and I would like to offer a few others.
The first is to question how certain you are about the family’s origin in
Strabane? I know as a Chicago suburbanite that I often tell strangers that I’m
from Chicago rather than 15 miles away in Wilmette. It would help greatly in
looking for clues to know EXACTLY where they lived in or near Strabane. I’d
focus my attention on that.
Someone suggested trying Ancestry. I think Ancestry is a very good idea! That
is where I discovered the name of the church James Ewing (1803-1837) attended
before emigrating in 1826. Ancestry had copies of the session minutes of the
church he joined in New York City. The minutes mentioned that he had presented
a letter of transfer from the Upper Clonaneese Presbyterian Church in south
eastern County Tyrone. James Ewing must have lived within 5 miles of the Church
as most people traveled on foot in the early 1800s or if lucky, on horseback.
Colleen mentioned that details of a family member may have been deliberately
obscured because of scandal or trauma. I’ve heard Aussies are very proud of
their “criminals” as founding fathers even though transported against their
will. A lot of information has been collected about them. Have you considered
checking criminal records in the prison museum in Tasmania?
I also suggest reading through digitized copies of the local Strabane
newspapers for mention of local Ewing families. Quite ordinary people get
mentioned if they got into trouble or even had arguments with their neighbors
that ended up in the Petty Sessions court. If nothing else, some of those
court cases are highly entertaining. I read a recent transcription on the
County Tyrone website about a man arrested for throwing a hedgehog, and for a
woman named “Kate the Man” because of her mannish appearance. Those are
precious details about our ancestors!
Consider the prevalence of people with the same name in the Strabane area. You
will have to consider them all. Like you, I have a Joseph B. Ewing to deal
with. My great-grandfather, Joseph Bell Ewing, was a son of the emigrant
James. I found a newspaper article from the area where he lived in
south-central Pennsylvania claiming that Joseph B. Ewing was summoned to court
on a charge of bastardy! In trying to follow up this lead I discovered THREE
men named Joseph B. Ewing in the same compact area. I finally sorted the men
out on the basis of occupation and a will. The Joseph B. Ewing I sought in
this instance was NOT my great-grandfather. Joseph B. Ewing was a married man
from a neighboring county and couldn’t satisfy the charge by marrying the
mother of the baby. The child, named Sarah after her mother, was “adopted” by
her paternal grandfather Ewing who made provision for the child in his will.
“Daddy” Ewing and his official family lived very nearby.
I think another lister mentioned that not all family members emigrated to the
same place or in the same way. Might your Joseph B. Ewing have gone somewhere
other than Australia first? As an example, a different Ewing man I’m puzzling
over, William Ewing, and his wife Marjorie Hopper [Happer?] emigrated to
Pennsylvania and lived very near my emigrant James in the village of Newton
Hamilton in Mifflin County. Marjorie was from a Church of Ireland family
living near Ballygawley. All of her other siblings who left Ireland went to
Canada! I’ve been corresponding with a Hopper researcher in Canada who was
astonished to learn that Marjorie and her husband had gone to Pennsylvania and
that Marjorie’s husband was a founding member of the Presbyterian Church in
Newton Hamilton. He’d assumed the couple had stayed in Ireland since they
weren’t with the rest of the family, and that Marjorie remained Church of
Ireland or Anglican.
My very best wishes for continued excitement for the ancestor hunt. PRONI is a
wonderful archive, but so complex that anybody could get discouraged. I’ve
found most of my best leads close to home. By the way…I’m STILL LOOKING!
Karen Miller
Wilmette, Illinois, USA
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