Page:Memoirs of the Fultons of Lisburn.djvu/9



I was called upon by some members of the Fulton family, to which my mother and my wife belonged, for information as to their pedigree, and it gradually came about that, with their general consent and at the desire of Mr. Ashworth P. Burke, I revised the proofs of the account given in Burke's Colonial Gentry, published in 1895, and eventually compiled the fuller and more accurate notice in Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, edition of 1898, Vol. II., Ireland, pp. 156–58. In the researches thus necessitated, a large number of incidents, dates, alliances, etc., came to light which were inadmissible into the formal Pedigree which was proved and recorded by the Heralds' College in the last-mentioned year, and could not be given within the limits (very liberal though they were) prescribed by Mr. Burke. To preserve, without intolerable prolixity, all available information, is the object of the following pages.

The materials for this task originally at my disposal, in addition to the first notice in the Landed Gentry of 1862, consisted only of (1) a letter and some brief memoranda in the handwriting of my uncle, John Williamson Fulton, with corrections thereon by his sister, Anne Hope (my mother), and a letter of hers to me, all falling within the period 1861–63, and (2) a long detailed account up to the then date which he dictated to me at Braidujle House in September 1872, with copies of McVeigh, Camac, Casement and Robinson pedigrees, which he then allowed me to make. These pedigrees in original, and other papers which he consulted while dictating, were not forthcoming after his death (10th November 1872), and are supposed to have been lost in a robbery which occurred at the house soon after that event.

Beyond the above, my only sources of information were (1) inquiries of individuals, mostly members of the family, to whom my best thanks are due for their ready and invaluable help; and (2) searches in the Public Records, especially in Dublin, the India Office, and the British Museum, as also in the Parish Registers of Lisburn, Derriaghy, and other localities. Monuments, books, newspapers, etc., also fell into this category. Throughout the matter, I have had the advantage of continuous correspondence since 1894 with my cousin, Dr. Robert Valpy Fulton of Dunedin, whose father James and uncle Robert were friends of my boyhood, when I was living with my grandmother Fulton at 4, Upper Harley Street, and they with their mother and aunts at Blackheath. He is an acute and zealous genealogist, and was already, when he first communicated with me, prosecuting inquiries in New Zealand, Jamaica, America, India, and England. We have freely exchanged all information we could collect, and discussed together the many difficult points, inconsistencies and doubts which arose, and I am deeply indebted