When I don't know a birthday

Many of my ancestors have just a birth year in their records, so I don't know their actual birthdays in order to post an acknowledgement of their lives.  And even some of them have an "ABT 1755" or something along those lines.

So I'll post tributes to those ancestors when I have the time.  I do acknowledge their lives contribute greatly to my lineage, no less than the people who ended up having something written down about them, even if only their birth and death dates.  Their children remembered them, and so shall I.

 How about going to Ireland then?

Melifont Abby, County Louth, Cistercian monks 1142-1743

Malcolm McNeal was born ABT 1720 in Ballymascanlon, County Louth, Ireland, and his death is recorded in Dublin in 1783.   We can find a little bit of history of Ballymascanlon in Wikipedia:

In 1185, during the Norman-English period, the district of Ballymascanlan as far north as Carrickarnon was donated by Hugh de Lacy to the Cistercian Abbey of Mellifont.

Following the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII the lordship of Ballymascanlan was granted to Sir Edward Moore, ancestor of the Marquis of Drogheda. Sir Garrett Moore inherited the title and estates in 1600 and was a friend of Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone, who was a frequent visitor to Mellifont and Ballymascanlon. It remained in the hands of the Moore family until the middle of the 18th century.

We know Malcolm McNeal's wife by the lovely name, Christian Kennan, (born around 1721 in Dublin.)  They married when she was 18, on 12 January, in 1739 (at Ballonascanlan Castle Knock, Ireland.) This name place doesn't seem to exist.  If it did, Wikipedia thinks it's just a mispelling of Ballymascanlan Castle.

Their son Robert McNeal was born in Dublin (or his birth was recorded there) on 12 Feb, 1741, and he took off to America after marrying Jane around 1765.

They had perhaps 8 children.  Again Ancestry is giving two people's birth dates in the same year.  And some of the children were born in New York state, and some in Pennsylvania...with the earlier births in PA, and the later ones in NY.  Since Robert and his wife, Jane died (yes, in the same year) and there are markers on their grave sites in 1818 in Livingston County, NY,  I can assume they had children or grandchildren living nearby.  

Mt. pleasant Cemetery, Livingston, NY

Robert was a veteran of the Revolutionary War.

Their daughter Elizabeth "Betsy" McNeal married William McElhany, as I spoke of their marriage  in a prior blog posting.HERE 

Betsy and William McElhaney's daughter, Jane McElhaney (see HERE for her post)  married Isaac Booth, who had his blog post HERE.  And their son William Lewis Booth, was my grandmother's great grandfather, and he is honored in his son's posting, Richard R. Booth, (richard-r-booth-my-murdered-great-grand)

So I'm gradually catching up with everyone, and eventually will have given you a glimpse for all these ancestors.  And I left out my posts about my grandmother and her mother in this list.  A sigh of relief is felt through the universe here!