The Morrisons of Kildrum and Carrowhugh

George Morrison's family, from the Laggan to the Foyle shore.

George Morrison was born on May 11, 1854 in Moville Lower. The tree gives his parents as John Morrison, born in 1820 at Crossroads, and Mary Campbell.

The Laggan

Crossroads is not a townland. It is the site of the Crossroads Presbyterian church and graveyard in Kildrum Upper, in Allsaints parish, in the fertile country south of Derry along the Foyle known as the Laggan. The tree's Morrison births there, from 1820 to 1838, are almost certainly baptisms in that church, whose register begins in 1811. George's grandfather was William John Morrison.

The Kildrum Morrisons did well. In 1901 Thomas Morrison of Kildrum Lower, George's uncle, lived in a first-class farmhouse of seven to nine rooms, with cottiers' houses and four farm servants on his holding. Record The family plot, with stones from 1871 to 1930, is in the Crossroads graveyard.

To Carrowhugh

At some point in the 1850s John Morrison's branch moved about 25 miles north, from the Laggan to Carrowhugh. George was born there in 1854, then James in 1856 and Robert Alexander in 1860. The tree spells the townland Carrichue. So the Morrisons and the Whites were neighbors, and George married the girl from the farm nearby, Rose White.

George's brothers scattered too: James and Robert Alexander died in and around London, and Abraham was living at Aldershot, the army town, in 1891. George and Rose went west.

The tree also has John Morrison dying in 1868 in Le Sueur County, Minnesota, the year after his last child was born in Moville. That needs checking. Open question