McCorkells Worldwide

Inishowen, Co. Donegal · c. 1750 onward

My own line, from William McCorkell of Curraghnagarry (c. 1750–1827), who signed the vestry book in 1792. Several of his great-granddaughters went to North America. Margaret reached Victoria, British Columbia, by way of the United States in 1863, and her sisters followed. Martha married William Harrison at Victoria in 1873; when she died in 1893 the Daily Colonist recalled that she had come out from Moville more than twenty years before with her sisters, Mrs Maslin, Mrs James Smith and Mrs Field. Another branch, John and Mary Ann McCorkill of Ballyrattan, sailed on the Mary Ann for Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1853.

British ColumbiaNew BrunswickBoston

Inishowen, Co. Donegal · 1740 onward

Robert at Ballymacarthur and Joseph at Goorey head the Moville families in the 1740 census. In the next century the area held more McCorkells than anywhere else in Ireland: over a hundred births were registered in the Moville district between 1834 and 1898.

Joseph and Ann McCorkell, cousins who had married, left Lower Moville for Glasgow about 1847. Their daughter Sally, baptised on 18 April 1834, is the first McCorkell in the Moville Presbyterian register. In Scotland the children gradually took the name McCorkindale. Their son William, a Clyde hammerman, married Barbara McLaughlan and disappeared from the records in 1869. Joseph's parents were George McCorkell and Sarah Park; Ann's were John McCorkell and Ann Aitcheson. Two Paisley McCorkindales later married into the Martin family of Greencastle. From Greencastle too, James William McCorkell, born in 1859, went to Ohio and then Los Angeles, where he died in 1917.

Glasgow & PaisleyOhioCalifornia

Inishowen, Co. Donegal · Roman Catholic · 1800s

One of the few Catholic McCorkell families. Charles McCorkell, son of George, married Mary Lynch at Malin in 1873 and died in 1885. Their son John, born in 1881, went to New York in the early 1900s and married there. A George McCorkell of the same district, son of George and Margaret McLoughlin, went to New York in 1871 and married Mary Herman. Anne McCorkell of Stroove married Patrick O'Donnell in 1830.

New York & Brooklyn

The Bogside and the Diamond, Derry city · c. 1721 onward

The family of William McCorkell, "in the Bog side", who died in 1795 in his 74th year and was probably the innkeeper of the Bogside named in the Londonderry Journal in 1772–75. His son William (1772–1836) owned the Londonderry Journal from 1796 and lost a famous libel action brought by the Rev. Cornelius O'Mullan at Galway Assizes in 1816, with £2,500 damages. William's son Arthur was baptised at First Derry Presbyterian Church in 1815, which shows the family were Presbyterian even though they married and were buried at the cathedral.

Archibald McCorkell (c. 1774–1829), a son of the founder and a ship's captain, settled in America and died in New York; he married Elizabeth Moore. Arthur's sons Arthur, aged 23, on the Amyone in 1875, and Louis, on the Cotopaxi in 1882, went to Australia and married there. George Magee McCorkell, very probably a son of the younger Archibald McCorkell, reached Victoria in 1881. Arthur's daughter Annette married James Corscaden (1848–1907). Archibald McCorkell, born in 1803 and a town councillor for the East Ward, died on 12 March 1854; his widow Mary died in 1884.

New YorkNew South WalesQueenslandVictoria

The Laggan, Co. Donegal · 1660s onward

The oldest continuous cluster. Archibald McCorkle paid hearth money at Elaghbeg in 1665, and the Burt kirk session book of 1676–1715 is full of the name, including Alexander McCorcle, married on 16 May 1696. At Dundrain, James McCorkell and Mary Ann Adams raised Thomas (b. 1835), James (b. 1839), Margaret and Matilda, two of whom married McElvennys. The Rev. Joseph MacCorkell (1857–1944) was a grandson of John McCorkell of Skeog. An American researcher has noted that the kirk session's index "reads like a telephone directory" of eighteenth-century Augusta and Rockbridge counties, Virginia.

Pennsylvania & Virginia (probable)

Co. Londonderry and Co. Donegal · 1770s onward

John McCorkell, born about 1803, told his family in Australia that he was born in Templemore, and he had the word set into the leaded glass of his front door. On 14 February 1839 he married Elizabeth, daughter of the late Charles Holmes of the townland of Scotland, at Donoughmore Presbyterian Church near Castlefinn; the register calls him John McCorkell of Monellan, in the parish of Monreagh. With his wife and their daughter Margaret, aged six months, he sailed from Greenock on the Robert Benn in 1842 and landed at Melbourne. A Jane McCorkell, born about 1817 in Donegal, was on the same voyage. His first son was named Andrew, and an Andrew McCorkell is listed at Mullennan, Templemore, in the 1831 census. Nearby, a McCorkill farmed at Cloughfin in 1778 and William McCorkhill sold his farm there in 1783, and Samuel McCorkell was churchwarden of Taughboyne in 1812.

From Lifford, James McCorkell (b. about 1761) and Martha Clarke had a son James, born in 1788. He married Lillian Matthews and moved from Strabane to New York, where he died in Suffolk County in 1857.

VictoriaNew York

North-West Liberties of Londonderry · 1796 onward

Andrew McCorkell, born in 1796, married Lydia McIlheney. On 6 June 1857 the Argentinus left Londonderry for Quebec carrying Andrew, 61, Lydia, 56, and their children Martha, Lydia, Anne and William, all of Ballynagard. Their grandchildren were born at Quebec and in Ontario and moved west to Oregon, Idaho and Washington. Their son Samuel went the other way, to Melbourne, in 1854.

Quebec & OntarioOregon & IdahoVictoria

Inishowen, Co. Donegal · 1796 onward

Joseph McCorkell married Rebecca Cook at Fahan Lower on 8 February 1825; their sons Samuel (1832), John (1836) and William (1838) were born at Buncrana, and William died at Macedon, Victoria, in 1899. An Australian tree gives Joseph's birthplace as Lanarkshire in 1808; that needs checking against the Irish records. Samuel Daniel McCorkell (1833–1895), buried at Gisborne, Victoria, is variously given as a son of Joseph and Rebecca or of a Joseph and Sarah Nolan. The Gisborne families are described in a Victorian book, Haystacks and Hellfire.

Victoria

Upper Liberties of Londonderry · 1849 onward

Robert Browne McCorkell (1856–1935), a carter born in Co. Donegal, married Ellen Reid on 6 January 1881; the register names his father as George McCorkell, labourer. The family is in the 1901 census at Ballougry. A marriage in 1849 of a George McCorkell, labourer, to a Miss Browne in the same district fits well as his parents', and may explain the middle name. Descendants went to New Zealand in the twentieth century.

New Zealand

Clondermot parish, Co. Londonderry · c. 1800 onward

A farming family of the townland of Primity, by the village of New Buildings on the east bank of the Foyle, who farmed in the locality for generations. The names John and David alternate in the family, which can be traced back to a William of about 1800. Their farm is marked on the map of Ulster McCorkells in Louis McCorkle's From Viking Glory. John Mac Corkill, who paid on one hearth at Lislagh in Clondermot in 1663, lived in the same district and may be their ancestor.

Lough Swilly, Co. Donegal · 1790s

Isaac McCorkell, M.D., born in 1795, served as a militia surgeon and went out to Jamaica, where he became a justice of the peace and married Ann Smith in 1824.

Jamaica

From Co. Donegal by way of Glasgow · 1804 onward

John McCorkle was born in Co. Donegal on 4 July 1804. With his wife Mary Wilkie (or Wilkinson) he was living at 143 Gallowgate, Glasgow, in 1851, before they emigrated to Girard township, Clearfield County. A Presbyterian church was built there in 1873 "through the perseverance of Mr. John McCorkle". Their children were William T., Margaret, Robert, Rebecca and Fannie; a brother went to Canada.

GlasgowPennsylvania