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James and Margaret McCormick emigrated from the Antrim coast of northern Ireland to New York in 1834, prior to the onset of the Potato Famine of the mid to late 1840's. Since the farmlands of northern Ireland were the richest in the whole country, the McCormicks likely had more land or money or both than Irish tenant farmers living in the south and west, the poorest areas of Ireland. However, economic conditions had been worsening all over Ireland for decades, if not centuries, so the McCormicks were clearly motivated to leave. They were among the lucky group of Irish who were able to fund their own passage to the U.S., arriving with resources with which to start new businesses.

They had 3 children with them (Hugh, Patrick, and Mary) and ultimately had a family of 8 sons, and 1 daughter, Mary. At least 27 grandchildren survived to adulthood; roughly 20 of those grandchildren married and had children.

James appears to have had two brothers, Daniel and Thomas, who arrived in the same rural New York area within a year of two of James' arrival. Also the old father of the three brothers, Patrick McCormick, arrived at some point, very likely accompanying one or more of his grown sons. Patrick appears with James and his family in the 1850 U.S. Federal census, at 97 years old. The wife of Patrick is thought to have been Louise Theresa, but there is no written record of her presence in the United States.

According to Irish custom, firstborn children are named for their paternal and maternal grandparents, in that order. However, if a grandparent is deceased, that name may take precedence. It appears that this was the likely reason that the firstborn child of James and Margaret McCormick was not named "Patrick" as tradition would have normally dictated, but rather named "Hugh". Margaret's father's name was indeed Hugh, so he was likely deceased at the time of firstborn Hugh's birth in approximately 1825-27 in Antrim, northern Ireland.

Margaret's full name by some accounts was Mary Margaret, and her maiden name was also by happenstance McCormick. She and James named their firstborn and only daughter "Mary". This could indicate that either James' or Mary Margaret's mother, or their paternal grandmother, was named Mary. We can eliminate James' mother (Louise Theresa) leaving three possible ancestors with the name: Mary Margaret's own mother, the mother of Patrick, or the mother of Mary Margaret's father Hugh.

According to a descendant of Margaret's son Paul McCormick in 2010, Margaret's father's name was Hugh McCormick. Hugh is believed to have remained in Ireland, where he died in an unknown year.

According to the censuses below, Margaret appears to have died sometime between the 1860 and 1870 censuses, between the age of 56 and 66 years old. Her death record and burial site have not been found as of 2014.

Since we have no birth order for the three McCormick brothers, or names for Patrick and Louise's other presumed children, it is not possible to trace the theoretical names of Patrick and Louise's own parents and grandparents. We only know that a James, Daniel, and Thomas may have been among either of their family's ancestors. The name Daniel is never repeated in the many family lines, but James and Thomas are both used repeatedly.

The following is taken from an official account of Steuben County, New York, written in 1921.



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"Daniel McCormick came from the county of Antrim in 1832, and built a grist-mill at Rough and Ready.

In 1834 his brother James came, bringing his wife and two little children, arriving in the winter at New York City, where he bought a one-horse wagon, and started up the North River on his overland journey to his new home, which he reached abut the middle of January, after twenty four days of almost insufferable hardship, arrived at his destination, and purchasing an improvement, made that summer the first three firkins of butter for market which were shipped from the town. He soon increased his dairy to 30 cows, and built him a house, three stories in height, on the point of a high hill overlooking the village, from which he took the name of "High Jimmy" McCormick, as he is popularly known throughout the surrounding country."
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In a later biography of one of his sons, James was said to have been born in County Cork, in the south of Ireland. However, the McCormick name is an anglicized version of Scottish Gaelic, and is a name associated with northern Ireland, where many Scots immigrated to over time. James and Margaret's only daughter Mary declared upon her headstone in 1917 that she had been born in County Antrim in 1830, which lies in northern Ireland, encompassing part of the city of Belfast.

Therefore, the McCormicks are believed to have come from County Antrim, in northern Ireland. Many later written records indicate that they were Catholic.

The surnames MacCormack and MacCormick are both derived from the Gaelic name Mac Cormaic, from the very popular Irish and Scottish personal name Cormac. Thus the translation is "son of Cormac". This popularity meant that the surname arose independently in a large number of places throughout Ireland and Scotland, and is today widely scattered. It seems likely also that the creation of these surnames took place at a later date than many of the other native Irish names.

McCormick is a Scottish surname originating in Ayrshire. McCormack is a native Irish surname originating in Ireland and has more than one origin. There was/is a native Gaelic Irish McCormack family from west Ulster (east Donegal and west Derry/Tyrone). Incidentally, there were/are also many McCormicks in Ulster, particularly east Ulster (Antrim/Down), largely descendants of 17th century Scottish Protestant Planters from Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway. In Ulster, the spelling 'McCormack' tends to signify that you are of native Catholic Irish stock, whereas the spelling 'McCormick' usually signifies that you are of Scottish Protestant Planter extraction. As one might expect, this was/is by no means a hard and fast rule.

After a certain point in time in the British Isles, a Catholic identity was associated mostly with only the native Irish, Catholicism having been replaced in England, Wales, and Scotland, after the monarchy of Henry VIII, though a rare few Catholic families remained in Scotland. However, Scottish names that were normally considered Protestant could be found in Ireland among the native Catholic Irish, especially after the 17th century.

A significant occurrence in Irish history was the 17th century Scottish migration into Northern Ireland called the Plantation of Ulster. These mostly Protestant Scots were eventually called the Scots-Irish, many of whom later emigrated to America, establishing themselves in business and government positions in Eastern U.S. cities, in remote rural areas such as Appalachia, throughout the South, and eventually the rest of the United States. There were also the Irish-Scots, consisting of native Catholic Irish who fled Ireland for Scotland at the time of the Potato Famine of the 1840's. These Irish-Scots often adopted a Scottish spelling of their Irish surname, in order to blend in with the dominant culture, which discriminated against what was then a small Catholic minority in Scotland. Illiterate Catholic Irish immigrants to Scotland also had their surnames recorded incorrectly in the Scottish form. Some of these Irish-Scots then moved to the United States, bringing their Scottish names with them. In addition to the Scots-Irish and Irish-Scots, there was a third culturally Irish group with Scottish surnames: native Catholic Irish from northern Ireland, who remained in (and may have later spread to various other locations within) Ireland, but who chose to alter their names to reflect a Scottish spelling. They did this presumably in the hope of gaining some approval or advantage, since they had been governed by a ruling class of British-based people for several centuries. Far less frequent were intermarriages between Protestant Planter families and Catholic native Irish families. This almost never happened between a Protestant woman and an Catholic Irish man, but on occasion a Protestant man chose to marry a native Catholic Irish woman, and then agreed to raise the children as Catholics, giving them his Scottish Protestant name.

The family of James McCormick and his brothers Daniel and Thomas, because they were Catholic, were very likely members of a family who were at least half native Irish. They could have descended from a Protestant Scottish - Catholic Irish couple, or they may have been one of the many native Catholic Irish families who changed the spelling of their name to a Scottish version, in this case from McCormack to McCormick. Some families even did this upon their immigration into the United States, trying to dissociate themselves again from a discriminated against class of people.

The grown McCormick sons of James and Margaret were all recorded as Catholics later on, so one may assume that the entire known McCormick family of Greenwood, New York, consisting of James, and his brothers Daniel and Thomas, and father Patrick McCormick, was Catholic.

All of the James and Margaret McCormick children appear to have received an education beyond that of poorer rural people, even attending schooling in New York in their teens, so one may conclude that James and Margaret were literate, and would have been essentially middle class in the Ireland of their time.

As the Civil War was drawing to a close in the mid 1860's, six of their sons and their only daughter left New York as young people, and moved to Montana.

There they added their own adventures and life stories to the legends and mythology of the old American West, a time period which lasted but a few short decades. Land which had been an untouched paradise for a number of years beyond the human imagination, was irrevocably changed within 50 years.

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JAMES MCCORMICK
Father: Patrick McCormick
Mother: Louise Theresa (theoretical name, no records found as of 2014)

Birth: Abt. 1798 in County Antrim, Ireland
Baptism: Abt. 1798 in County Antrim, Ireland
Death: 04 Jul 1886 in Greenwood, Steuben County, New York

Spouse: Mary Margaret

Children:

Patrick J. McCormick
Mary McCormick
Hugh McCormick
Alphonsus McCormick
James McCormick
Robert L. McCormick, Sr.
John McCormick
Paul J. McCormick, Sr.
Frances (Frank) D. McCormick

Notes:

About 1833 James age 33, and Margaret age 28, and their three
children, Patrick age 6, Mary age 3, and Hugh age 1, emigrated from
Ireland to the U.S. (New York).

1850 U. S. Census taken October 17, for the City of Greenwood, Steuben
County, New York lists James age 50, occupation "farmer", value of real
estate $2,000, wife Margaret age 45, and children: Patrick age 23,
occupation "Farmer", Mary age 20, Hugh age 18, occupation "Farmer",
son Alphonsus age 14, James age 13, Robert age 10, John age 8, Paul age 6,
and Francis age 3. Also, a "Patrick" (Father to James ?) age 97,
born in Ireland, and "Patrick De" age 23, occupation carpenter, born in
Ireland.

1860 U. S. Census taken June 12 for the city of Westunion; Steuben
County; New York; post office Rexville lists James age 60, occupation
"Tavrin & Farmer", value of real estate $4,000, value of personal estate
$1,500, wife Margaret age 56. Living with James and Margaret were sons
Alphonsus age 24, occupation "Farmer"; James age 22 "Farmer"; Robert
age 20 "Farmer"; John age 18; Paul age 15; Francis age 13. Also living with
the family was Mary age 26, occupation "Dressmaker", and two servants
Ann? Dixon age 19 and James Dixon age 30.

1870 U. S. Census taken July 22 for Westunion, Steuben County, New
York lists James McCormick Sr. age 69, (widow?) living with A.
(Alphonsus) McCormick.

1880 U. S. Census taken June 28 for the West Union, Steuben County,
New York lists James McCormick age 83 living with son James Jr. age 40,
head of household, occupation "Atorey Hotel Keeper", single, birthplace
New York; also listed was Mary McCormick age 45, sister, divorced,
occupation "Miliner"; Mary's daughters Louise age 18; Theresa age 16;
John Mulrany age 17, Servant; Mary Connell age 21, Servant.