Thomas Johnston: 1800-1802 Northern Ireland

Here is my Ulster heritage information.

Thomas Johnston was born somewhere in Northern Ireland about 1800-1802. By about 1844, he was in Canada, living in Pickering Township in Ontario County, just east of Toronto. I have no information at all about how or when or with whom he came to Canada. He married Elizabeth Gray, widow of Christopher Gibson, about 1842-1846. (I do not have this marriage record.) They had one son, John Johnston, born 1846-1847 in Pickering Township. (I do not have this birth record.) Thomas Johnston died in 1861. (I have never found his burial nor do I have a death record. His death is recorded in the Johnston Family Bible.)

Elizabeth Gray and Christopher Gibson had married in Northern Ireland about 1833-1834. Their daughter Ellen Gibson was born there 1834-1835. Their son Thomas was born there 21 May (probably 1837). And their second son James Gibson was born there 1839-1840. James' 1870 Canadian marriage record shows he was born in Armagh. The family then came to Canada, and their last child, Christopher Gibson Jr, was born in Canada (probably in Pickering Township) 1842-1843. Christopher Sr then died in Canada 1841-1845.

I have paid a goodly sum of money to have all of the surviving Armagh parish registers searched for the Gibson-Gray family, and nothing was found. So the 1923 violence in Ireland that destroyed so many public records apparently destroyed their records as well.

Since this is my paternal y-chromosome line, I have had DNA testing done by Family Tree DNA (kit 143430), Ancestry, and SMGF. I am a member of the J/J/J DNA group on FTDNA (where I am a "Scarlet Oak") and the J/J/J I2b1 DNA group on Ancestry and the "Ulster DNA Ancestry" group on Ancestry. My hope is that if we can have enough people put their own DNA puzzle pieces on the table, then we can bridge the gap in the paper trail that almost all of us who have Ulster heritage must ultimately confront. And when enough pieces are there, we can finally start fitting them together.