The Hamilton-Montgomery Plantation of UlsterThe first migration of any Cree that we know of was from Scotland to Ireland, almost certainly as part of the Hamilton-Montgomery Plantation. This was a private venture, by which Scots, mainly from the Lowlands and south-west of Scotland were settled on the Ards Peninsula of County Down. This took place in the years after 1607 and continued, with peaks and troughs, throughout the century. It preceded the main Ulster Plantation which was further west in Counties Armagh, Tyrone, Londonderry and Donegal. A good insight into the Plantation of Ulster is given in the BBC web site The Plantation of Ulster. Of particular interest is a page entitled Economic background of the settlers. The Hamilton-Montgomery Settlement has a web site of its own. Of particular interest are two maps. The first The Hamilton & Montgomery Lands, circa 1606 shows the areas of Counties Down and Antrim where Scotsmen were settled. The second The Migration & Settlement, circa 1606 also shows the places in Scotland where they came from. Although there are no referecen to Cree individuals in the web site, it gives valuable insight into the whole process of this particular event in Ulster's history. Emigration from County DownMany of the settlers' descendants became disenchanted with the actions of the British government and with their situation in Ireland and chose to migrate to the USA in the mid-eighteenth Century. At least six Cree individual moved, either as individuals or taking their families, from County Down to settle in western Pennsylvania where so many northern Irish Presbyterians settled. YDNA testing has shown that all or most if these six Cree families were closely related. In fact they included two pairs of brothers. Their migration to the USA around 1770 is discussed in the page on migration to the USA. Another Cree migrated from County Down to Cork, at the other end of the island. His family later moved to Pembroke in Wales. Descendants today are brothers Trevor Cree in England and Alec in New Zealand. Another close relative was James Cree who was a tenant of the divided farm of his great-uncle John Cree at Ballycastle. This was almost next door to his landlord, Lord Londonderry, who lived at Mount Stewart. In 1848 the famine was at its worst and he and his wife and four children moved to Lord Londonderry's estate at Wolviston in County Durham, probably with Lord Londonderry's help. A related branch of this branch had a tenancy at Ballybarnes, a few miles away the other side of Newtownards, for several generations. One descendant, Joseph Cree, migrated to Yorkshire, England, some time before 1914 and has descendants there. Another, Alexander was born in 1915, and later settled in Barrow in Furness, Lancashire, while Alexander's sister migrated to Canada. All in all, the County Down Crees, having been amongst the pioneers of farming in County Down - it was said to be mainly woodland and waste land before the Plantations - have all moved away - either "over the water" or to the towns of of Bangor, Belfast and Lisburn. |
For more details of this earliest of Cree migrations see Early Cree families in County Down, Ireland. |
A Cree line from County ClareThis is an independent Irish line which almost certainly arose as a deliberate spelling change from the old Irish suranem Creagh. John Cree of Ennis, Co. Clare, must have been born around 1690. His grandson made a fortune in the East India trade and bought a country house in Dorset England in 1787. This Cree line still lives in Dorset but the story of John Cree the grandson is much mnore complex than that. |
|
An excise officer staysIn 1890 a Scottish customs officer, William Brown Cree, was posted to Dundalk, County Louth. He and his family seem to have mostly stayed in Ireland. |
|