Page:The McClure Family.djvu/24

12 Historical Society of Ireland, writes on Aug. 5, 1913;

"We have not in our care church records of East Donegal, nor do I know of any except one in Magee College, Derry. I have searched the Muster Roll, 1631, and the Hearth Tax List, 1663, for Co. Derry, but did not find a single McClure. There is a register of Burt neighborhood (Co. Donegal, near Londonderry) for the years 1676-1719, but the searching of the book would mean some labor and time."

Rev. A. G. Lecky, author of "The Days of the Laggan Presbytery," writes August 7, 1913, of Co. Donegal:

"Among the names of the men who paid Hearth Tax in the Parish of Raphoe, 1665, there are two John McClures of Augheygalt, and a Gilbert McCluer in the adjoining Parish of Donoghmore. Also, amongst the names of Elders from Raphoe who attended meetings of the Laggan Presbytery between the years 1672-1700, are John, Arthur and Richard McClure. Also John McClure from Burt, near Londonderry. The name has always been a common one in this district. There are at present six McClure seat holders in the congregation of Convoy." Rev. Francis McClure of Carrigut, Co. Donegal, died in the United States some years ago while on a visit to his son.

Rev. John J. McClure, D. D., of Capetown, South Africa, writes September 9, 1913: "My father, Rev. Samuel McClure, who ministered at Crossroads, near Londonderry, and who died in 1874, came from Dernock, near Ballymoney, Co. Antrim, where his forefathers had been for some generations. They came originally from some place in the southwest of Scotland."

It is generally agreed that the Irish McClures are not one family, but are descended from a number of ancestors who emigrated from Scotland after 1608. They have not as a rule preserved their genealogies, hence the difficulty in tracing connection between them and determining the place and date of their origin in Scotland. The Ulster Journal of Archaeology, vol. II, p. 160, states that the center of the McClure families in Ulster is in Upper Marsareene, the