McGARRAH GENEALOGY

I have traced my own ancestry back through seven generations to an individual, who spelled his name McGarraugh, and who immigrated to Pennsylvania in the mid to late 1700's. I was able to verify several details by contacting and eventually visiting some distant cousins who still live in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately the information ends there for me so far but I am interested in other branches of the family and particularly in any links to Europe. I have pursued this to a small degree with an Internet friend in Scotland but the trail is still cold. I would enjoy corresponding with anyone else interested in McGarrah family history. Here is a summary of my research to date.

MCGARRAH FAMILY ORIGINS

Two facts become quickly apparent when researching the McGarrah (originally spelled McGarraugh) family name. First, it is not very common, and second, it is easily misspelled. A July, 1995 search of the UK telephone directory on CD ROM revealed only one McGarrah (no McGarraugh's) in southern England although there were a few close spelling variations scattered around the area. A search of similar CD ROM records for the US produced less than two hundred McGarrah families. I hope to analyze these records in more detail as time permits. Some of the spelling variations (errors?) that I have encountered include: McGara, McGarah, McGarry, McGarragh, McGarrough, McGaraugh, and McGerraugh. Analyzing the McGarrah name yields some basic facts that apply to many Scottish surnames. The prefix "Mc" is a shortened version of "Mac" and comes from the Scottish Gaelic language meaning "son of". The Highland Scots (Celts) used "Mac" to denote a family's ancestral history as in MacPherson or "son of the parson". The Lowland Scots tended to simply add "son" to a surname to achieve this meaning as in Johnson or "son of John". A possible interpretation of the name McGarraugh might be "son of Gareth, Garret, or Garrick". According to some reference books the meaning of these names can be interpreted as "mighty spear maker", although this is nothing but a guess on my part. Additional research will hopefully reveal more accurate origins of the McGarraugh family name. The patriarch of my family line in the United States of America was Joseph McGarraugh. Unsubstantiated family tradition indicates he emigrated from county Ulster in northern Ireland in the 1750's or 1760's. His son Robert became a well documented pioneer Presbyterian minister so it can be reasonably deduced that this was Joseph's probable religious background also. No documented evidence has been found to date linking Joseph McGarraugh to Ireland or Scotland. Thus, unfortunately, the trail of my verifiable family history ends in Pennsylvania in the late 1700's. The following general information is, however, of interest and probably applies to the McGarraugh family in Europe.

THE SCOTS-IRISH IN IRELAND

The term "Scots-Irish" is not, as might be assumed, an indication of a mixed Scottish and Irish descent. It is properly used as a distinctive race name for the descendants in America of the early Scots Presbyterian emigrants from Ireland. These Scots people, for a hundred years or more after 1600, settled with their families in Ulster, in the northern part of Ireland. Beginning in the early 1700's, after having long suffered under great civil and religious oppression imposed by England, they moved on to a more promising home in America. The Scots-Irish were distinct from the Scots who came to America directly from Scotland. The Scots-Irish were Scotsmen who had been induced to migrate to Ireland to occupy lands which had been confiscated from Irish rebels during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I of England. This migration began in 1610 and lasted for many years. It resulted in the Scots occupation of Ulster, comprising nine counties in northern Ireland, and the Scots subsequently became the predominant race throughout that region. These Ulster colonists, who were Presbyterians, held their ground against the Irish Catholics and eventually prospered despite the handicap of a barren soil and the necessity of border fighting with the native Irish. After about a century, the English government destroyed their prosperity by prohibiting the export of their woolens and other products, and at the same time threatening their religion by requiring them to pay tithes to the Anglican Church. As the long term leases of the Scots-Irish ended after 1710, the English landlords steeply increased the rents. Rather than sign new leases, tens of thousands of tenants embarked in successive waves of emigration. The documentation of actual emigration from Ulster is very meager and incomplete. Few records have been preserved of the departure of vessels from ports in Scotland or Ireland before the 1800's. Passenger lists that have survived owe their existence more to accident than design. Most of the passenger ships sailing from Ireland during the eighteenth century were bound for the Quaker colony. Pennsylvania thus became the center of the Presbyterian settlements in the New World. The emigrants to Pennsylvania usually landed at one of three ports, Lewes, Newcastle (both in Delaware, which was then a part of Pennsylvania), or Philadelphia. Presbyterian congregations had been established in these towns before 1698.

THE SCOTS-IRISH IN PENNSYLVANIA

The Scots-Irish were often coldly received at the colonial ports and most of them pushed out to the edge of the American wilderness which at that time in Pennsylvania was roughly defined as the land west of the Allegheny mountains. There they occupied the land with scant regard for ownership, believing that "it was against the laws of God and nature that so much land should be idle while so many Christians wanted it to labor on and to raise bread." They also fought the Indians as earlier they had fought the Irish. The Indian title to the lands in south western Pennsylvania, comprising the present counties of Fayette, Westmoreland, Allegheny, and Washington, was purchased by the Penns in 1769, and was thus opened for development. This was the area into which Joseph McGarraugh and his wife decided to settle in the 1770's. Reverend James Finley organized Rehobeth church in 1771 in Rostraver township, Westmoreland county, between the "forks of the Youghiogheny" river (the area near its junction with the Monongahela). Family records say it was in this church that Joseph's son Robert received the call to become a minister.

THE SCOTS-IRISH IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

At the time of the American Revolution there was no government sponsored army. Most able bodied men instead belonged to a unit of their state militia. The militia was similar to our present day national guard and consisted of citizen-soldiers who were available to protect the population as needed. Even though the American people distrusted a standing army, Congress realized one was necessary and created the Continental Army in 1775. After the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the pure Scots and Irish tended to be Loyalists while the Scots-Irish, who hated the English, almost all became patriots. Throughout the war the Continental Army complemented rather than supplanted the state militias. It was in the 3rd Battalion of the Westmoreland County Militia that Joseph McGarraugh served from 1778 to 1783, holding the rank of Major. This group was also known as the "Rangers on the Frontiers". Greeting enemy forces with small scale warfare and maintaining internal security were only two of the militia's functions. They also fought Indians, garrisoned forts, guarded prisoners of war, collected intelligence, rallied the war weary, transported supplies, and battled British foragers.
The preceding limited overview of the Scots-Irish and their history establishes a reasonable perspective from which to view the McGarrah family ancestors.

MCGARRAH FAMILY ANCESTORS IN AMERICA

TIME LINE OF MCGARRAH FAMILY HISTORY

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