OUR MOST ANCIENT ANCESTORS
Genetic science is able to help us identify our earliest possible ancestors from thousands of years ago, but only in a somewhat general anthropological way. Genealogical DNA testing indicates those who eventually became our Jam?son family would have belonged to a specific group of people, they themselves undoubtedly descended from others originally of the African continent, who can be found some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago in the Iberian Refugia (Spain), during the last ice age. Their subsequent migration patterns, after the ice finally began it's slow retreat, would have been a northern movement through France and then on to a northeastern loop into what is now Germany and Denmark, then into all of Scandinavia. Eventually, some from this group migrated westward into the British Isles and Iceland. Some say our particular ancestor group didn't genetically format into it's present profile until about 3,000 to 5,000 years ago (3000-1500 BC), somewhere in northern Europe, probably Denmark. Nevertheless, everyone pretty much agrees with the general migration patterns, as well as all other modern results.
It may be interesting to know that our family's proven more general overall most ancient genetic group is shared by at least two different known migrations into the British Isles, from the same ancient peoples. One from the massive and well known migration in the early fifth century, from the area of what is now Denmark and Germany into England, by a people known as Anglo-Saxons who are sometimes thought of as the "permanent invaders." Our general genetic group is also the same as that from a later migration of Vikings westward into Scotland, as mentioned above. In addition it can also be said that our general genetic group, can also be found amongst the Normans who came to Britain in the tenth century, probably Franco forebears of those who ended up migrating eastward from ancient times, or Vikings who could be found in Normandy at the time the Normans invaded England. One thing we do know, is that our DNA profile excludes any chance our family is descended from the Celtic Picts, who were indigenous to what is now northern and eastern Scotland during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. That is also the case with Romans, who had very little to do with Scotland, while in the British Isles.
Given our particular family's genetic make up and because we are widely thought to be from Scotland, we would have probably been of Nordic forefathers, through Viking conquests and migrations, possibly dating back as far as the seventh or eighth century. Our patriarchal genetic profile appears to substantiate this. We do not know when or where they may have first arrived. However, it would be safe to say they were definitely there before the use of surnames in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Long enough ago to now be considered as an integral and structural part of that ethnicity.
Our particular Jam?son families did not exist anywhere, as such, until the use of surnames. Before that, we were just "Johns and Thomases and "James'" and "Peters" etc., although our genetic strain was always the same as it is now. Unfortunately, the time before surnames is almost impossible to verify, because there were so few records kept. In fact the reason for surnames in the first place was to keep records, often for tax and other organizational reasons. Few family surnames were used before the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries in what we now known as the United Kingdom, or the British Isles.
SCOTLAND
Regardless of who or where, our Scottish Jamesons were from, before they were known as Jamesons, they were undoubtedly members of some Scottish clan during the time they lived, wherever that was. Almost everyone was a member of a clan as the "rule by clan" society was generally accepted as a way of life in Scotland during those times, although less so in the Lowlands, at least by the end of the 16th century. There were many clans in the areas where we are thought to be originally from, including: Stewarts, Campbells, MacNabs, MacLarens, Grahams, etc. Although no known clan affiliation exists with our Jameson family, the Jam?son surname is often associated with Clan Stewart and especially one of it's main branches, Clan Stuart of Bute, from the Island of Bute, of which the surname Jameson is often specifically listed as a sept. Jameson was also a well known sept of the Clan Gunn from the far northeastern part of Scotland, to which many Jameson families consider their heritage. However no known connection exists between the Jamesons of Clan Gunn and our Jameson family. The Jameson families in the Lowlands border areas would also be thought of as clans, although in a less traditional way. Here too we know of no direct connections with our Jameson family. Any real connection with ANY clan, will need be made with YDNA testing. More details about clans and our family here.
IRELAND
All of our particular (Y-DNA matched) Jam?sons (at least those that we know about) all came from (through?) Ulster Ireland, even though they are all widely assumed to have previously been of Scottish lineage and heritage. Given the lack of many actual records from these very early times and then further limited to just those records which have survived and are publicly available, doesn't amount to much. But even here, we do not always know if or how they might be connected or related. So far, we know of three separate areas where our Jam?sons came from in Ireland, perhaps at different times. From this is safe to assume, at least somewhat, they are all in fact somehow connected, especially since the DNA from known descendants, proves that.
At the beginning of the 17th century King James I, of England, began a repopulation of northern Ireland with mostly Scottish Protestants. The area was at the time largely occupied by the Desmonds, who had been defeated and depleted in various rebellions with the crown during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This forced repopulation mostly started about 1611 and was an effort by the king to colonize this here-to-fore troublesome area with a more sympathetic and supportive people. The incentives were lucrative with large quantities of land available for each immigrant. Many Scots took advantage of this offer and is undoubtedly why our Jameson ancestors found their way to Ireland. This population was largely increased with further immigration over the next fifty years as a result of persecutions by English Kings Charles I and Charles II in their effort to establish the Church of England in Scotland.
Jam?sons were known to have been in Ulster beginning with these early 1600s, when a John Jameson, apparently part of the Hamilton group of County Ayr, Scottish immigrants began their settlements in northern Ulster Ireland, just north of what is now Belfast. This was some of the earliest immigration into Ireland of those from Scotland, that we know of.
As Marilyn Jamison wrote in her paper on this subject: "Scottish immigration into early Ulster was somewhat larger and more significant than is generally much talked or written about, probably because so few records from those times have survived or are publicly available. Some time in the early part of the 1600's, before the War of the Three Kingdoms, or the establishment of the Londonderry Plantations, or the influx of religious persecutions, a small groups of Scottish emigres began migrating from nearby Ayrshire Scotland, to that part of what is now Northern Ireland. Recent research has revealed that several Jam?son families from the Ayrshire area, may have even predated those early migrations."
In September of 1605, a John Jameson, "a German", of Ayrshire, was granted Denizen rights. This was about eight months before James Hamilton started bringing over settlers, so it is possible Jameson was an employee or associate of some kind and part of that group establishing a connection between John Jameson and the Hamiltons and their earliest settlements.
Marilyn's work also shows that, Gawin Hamilton, one of the original movement founders, acquired lands for himself in Holywood, near Belfast and along the River Bann near Coleraine, further suggesting a connection between these early immigrants from Ayrshire Scotland with (our?) Jamesons to be found there in later years.
The city of Coleraine is the area where County Londonderry meets County Antrim and the Ards Peninsula area of County Down, is near Belfast, Both of these areas were thick with Jam?son families, including ours, since by at least the beginning of the eighteenth century. This suggests they, or at least some of them, may have been possible descendants of John Jameson (that "German") or others from the Ayrshire area of Scotland.
It is far more widely known and studied, that after the end of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a much more significant immigration of Scottish people into Ulster took place, including the finally successful population of the Londonderry Plantations along with other areas of this northern area of Ireland. This is just as likely the source of our Jam?sons as the earlier lot from Ayrshire, but apart from speculation, we do not know that.
So, although we don't really know when or how any of even "our" actual Jam?son ancestors arrived in Ulster, we do know that there were those of our surname at least beginning in the very early 1600's.
The Scottish colonists resided in Ireland for over several decades during the middle 1600's on into the 1700's. They lived somewhat autonomously, retaining their culture and traditions. Intermarriages of the Scots with the indigenous Irish during that time was exceedingly rare, so that the Scotch race remained nearly as distinct as it was prior to its settlement in this new land. They attended their own churches and continued life pretty much as it was known to them in Scotland.
At least some of our Jameson families were part of this early Ulster repopulation, although we do not know exactly when they made their migrations, nor do we know where exactly they migrated from or where in Ulster they first settled. The earliest we know about them is from a 1669 taxation document known as the Hearth Money Rolls. This shows an Alexander and a Thomas Jamesone in the area of Ballymoney in County Antrim. They are believed to be the ancestors of our Jonathan, Alexander, Thomas and Hugh Jameson (and probably others) who eventually emigrated to New England in the early 1700s.
How or when Jonathan and Alexander came to settle here (in Ulster), we don't know. It is possible they came here from an earlier arrival some other place in County Antrim. Or, it is possible they arrived in Ireland as part of the Londonderry Plantation. This was a planned settlement in western Ulster in the county of newly named Derry and covered the area from the River Foyle on the west, eastward to the Bann River. On the west was the old city of Derry now renamed Londonderry and on the east was the town of Coleraine.
Coleraine, and the surrounding Bann River Valley area, was one of the two larger communities developed by the London Companies during the Plantation of Ulster at the start of the 17th century. Coleraine has a long history of settlement. In fact, the Mesolithic site at Mount Sandel, which dates from approximately 5935 BC, has some of the earliest evidence of human settlement in Ireland. Our particular Jamesons seems to have been mostly in both this area and in the Ards Peninsula and County Down near and around Belfast. Many other Jam?sons can be found in the Bann Valley, some to this day. Several of these Jam?sons are thought to be somehow related to our Jamesons who emigrated in the early 1700s, although most have not been proved.
In the latter part of the 17th century King James II of England, the last Roman Catholic King, was disposed of his throne. Determined to regain the crown, he went to Ireland where he raised an army of over 40,000, "wild Irishmen" and had some additional help from the French, thanks to Louis XIV. One of his first acts was an attempt to rid the country of King James I colonists, believing that because they were of a different religion, would never support his monarchy. The wholesale destruction of life and property that followed in the wake of his army caused most of the remaining colonists, about 30,000 in all, to take refuge in Londonderry, or Derry, the place of oaks, as a city of refuge, and to take shelter behind it's walls. Here they were besieged and blockaded for one hundred and five days. They gave James' army a stubborn fight, killing 8,000. They themselves lost 4,000 of perhaps what may have been only 7,000 effective men. A great many more of the besieged perished of hunger and disease than were killed by the guns of the Irish attackers. Nearly every cellar in the town was said to have been occupied by the putrefying remains of those who died so fast that they could not be buried. The dogs who fattened on the blood of the slain were greedily devoured by the starving people. Even the rats that came to the disaster furnished "meat for the eaters." A soldiers rations were a half pound of tallow and three-quarters of a pound of horse hide per day. Might it not have been here where Darwin obtained his theory of "the survival of the fittest?
Many families did survive this siege, and with the arrival of the army of William III, the Prince of Orange and new King of England, fought the Battle of Boyne, June 30th and July 1st 1690 They, in one of history's most decisive battles, soundly defeated and destroyed James' army, forcing him to flee to France where he lived until his death in 1701.
A William Jameson was said to have served in the defense of Londonderry during the siege in 1689, and probably with such distinguished gallantry and bravery that he was exempted from taxation throughout the British Dominion.
DIFFICULT TIMES
Unfortunately, by the Test Act of 1704 under Queen Anne (1702-1714), the Scots in Ulster lost every benefit of the Tolerant Act of May 24, 1689, gained under King William. The policies virtually made the people outlaws, and were deprived of their chapels and schools, invalidated their marriages, and prohibited anyone from office above that of petty constable. For these and other reasons emigration out of Ireland, and for that matter all of the British Isles and Europe has continued ever since, particularly from Ireland during the famines in the middle 1800's. This of course included people from our particular Jameson family. Migrations of all kinds to practically everywhere on earth have made this a small world in the time since our Jameson ancestors moved to Ulster in the 1600's. It can be assumed that one can now find a Jameson of our family practically anywhere on this globe.
Although James II was driven from Ireland, sectarian violence continued between Irish Catholic and Irish Protestants, indeed to this day. Ireland eventually divided itself into the independent Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which remains a part of the United Kingdom.
Other, more specifically detailed, related pages of interest:
Our Scotland Jamesons - An in-depth examination of the Jamesons, particularly our Jamesons, in Scotland - starting in the beginning of the 1600's and then since.
Our Bann Valley Jamesons - An in-depth examination of our Jamesons families, in Ulster, Ireland - starting around the latter 1600's and then since.
Our Jamesons of County Down - An in-depth examination of our Jamesons families, in County Down and the surrounding area, of Ulster, Ireland - starting around the latter 1600's and then since.
Our Early American New Hampshire Jamesons - An in-depth examination of our early immigrant Jamesons, in what is now Hampshire, of Colonial New England - starting in the early 1700's.
Our Early Jamesons - some background and history