Samuel Magill; Have I found his birth and parents?????
After over thirty years researching family history, I think that I have finally cracked how we have Hunter in the Magill names. Family lore had two different stories as to why our surname is Magill; The first one is that Samuel (Hunter), murdered a man called Magill and took the Magill name and high-tailed it out of Ireland. The second one is that he took his mother’s maiden name of Magill and left Ireland because of reasons unknown. While both of these were interesting, I took them with a grain of salt. Samuel wasn’t above telling ‘stories.’ In February I was in Salt Lake City, home to the BIGGEST FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY in the world and have looked into Samuel’s birth. We know that he was born in County Antrim between 1844-1849. This has been gleaned from family lore and his death certificate. Well before I arrived in Salt Lake City, I found a birth of one Samuel Magill, son of a James Magill and Mary. I then looked for their marriage and found this...