James McCarrell, Irish child immigrant

James McCarrell (my 5 great grandfather) was born in 1728, but travelled with his parents as a baby between 1728 and 1730 (when his sister was born in Pennsylvania) from Ireland to the British Colony of Pennsylvania as did many Protestant Irish at this time.

On Ancestry, people have him born in Scotland, others Ireland and still others in Letterkenny, Pennsylvania.  I am going to try to sort it out.

First, my DNA: If you look at  the map from 23andme, I am clearly more Irish than Scottish although my ancestors and I are Protestant. (Glasgow is the only Scottish blip)  What that really means is people TODAY who share my DNA live in those areas.  So, that doesn't really prove that they were Irish 500 years ago. Those from Scotland might have gone to Ireland with some staying behind and some moving on to America colonies.  Those would be the Scotch-Irish (which is one of my major ethnicities in DNA and on paper) or Scots-Irish.

And which Irish shading are the McCarrells?  Probably County Donegal in the northwest of Ireland where there is a town called Letterkenny (like in Pennsylvania).  I think some on Ancestry, for James birth place, might have hit save for the Pennsylvania town instead of the one in Ireland.  Another possibility is that the Irish from Letterkenny  who founded the Pennsylvania town in 1736 might have been friends or kin with the McCarrells urging them to settle there, too in1738.

So, I have Irish DNA, do I have any other proof James was born in Ireland?  Margaret McCarrell in Knox Co. TN  just told cousin Dwight in a telephone conversation January 2022 that she has seen James McCarrell's diary.  Margaret saw in that diary that James had written in his own hand that he was born in Ireland.  So, James McCarrell was born in Ireland, but was he Scotch-Irish?

Some have thought since the McCarrells were Protestant Irish, they must have been from Scotland originally, but I am leaning toward, they were Irish before the Scots settled there.  Several sites that discuss surname origins say it is an Irish name (I checked and the same sites said Graham was Scottish or Irish and Watson could be English, Scottish and Irish).  Those are clearly Scotch-Irish names, but that's not what is said about McCarrell

Recorded as MacCarroll, McCarroll, McCarrell, McCarle, Carroll, and others, this surname is Irish.

 

It is a developed form of the ancient name Mac Cearbhaill meaning 'The son of the warrior' from the personal name Cearbhall, a byname for a fierce warrior deriving from "cearbh", meaning to hack. There were two distinct clans, one in Leinster and the other in Ulster, where the name is often recorded as MacCarvill. The surname dates back to the early 14th Century (see below), and early examples of recordings include Donslevy Mac Carroll in 1357, described by the Four Masters as "a noble master of music and melody, the best of his time".  The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Mulrory Mac Carroll, which was dated 1328. He was the Chief Minster of Ireland and Scotland, during the reign of King Edward 111rd of England, 1327 - 1377. 

© Copyright: Name Origin Research www.surnamedb.com 1980 - 2012

I am suggesting they may not have been Scottish at all.  The name dates to the 1300's long before the Scots were re-settled in Ireland.  When the Catholic Irish migration occurred more than 100 years later, all Protestant Irish from the colonial period were labeled "Scotch-Irish" because most were that.  But, I don't think the McCarrells were.  I think they were just rebellious Irish who were Dissenters or Non-comformists.  Those with this label were Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, but also could have been Baptists.  From their beginnings in the American Colony, the McCarrells appear to have been Baptist.  Was it because there were no Presbyterian churches for them to attend or was it because they had been Baptist in Ireland?