Follow Friday - Arthur Fant Physician of Tipperary, Arkansas and Texas ~

           Follow us with  DNA and figure things out..

In my DNA at AncestryDNA I apparently match some distant Fants.. Years ago, our dear departed friend Bert Fant from Arkansas told me about Arthur Fant a physician, born in Ireland and living in Arkansas and later dying in Texas.. unrelated to the Fants of "the Book" and sometimes spelling it Fort.

John McDermott and I speculated about Arthur-the- physician.. he sometimes styled his name with other spellings..
 Other Virginia Fants do that of course..My good DNA buddy Luther Franklin Fant has found matches with other lines with names like Elias spelled a different way..
 Proud of you Luke for pursuing this thing with me !

So now I find Anne Phant/Fant marrying with a John Howard, in Templemore Tipperary and having a lot of children.. TWO of her children's Baptismal sponsors were "Arthur Fant/Pfant/Forte"

I am also quite proud of my 5th cousin who was first cousin to my first little playmate on East Line Street. Yay Bill Howard and Frank J Howard.. Bill has followed me into this mess and is doing a great job of figuring it out..

Tombstone Tuesday - Mary ( May) Fant Westenskow - Immigrant daughter of Patrick Fant of Durham and Cork

My chasing of DNA cousins quite often results in English or Welsh  cousins and I sharing an Irish ancestor. This is easily explained by the fairly high percentage of Irish in my genome and that most of my ancestors came to the US after 1850.

I believe Mary "May" Fant and I share 4th great grandparents, James Fant and Bridget who lived around Brigown Cork. She marries a man born in Utah of Danish ancestry and names a son Parley Faunt Westenskow.

Motivation Monday - Nearest Place That Wasn't Ireland- Fants from Ireland into UK

With 23andme back to almost full speed and AncestryDNA closing in at over 1.5 million testers and FTDNA's Family Finder with 300,000 maybe
 I am increasingly aware of DNA cousin matches who are in England who definitely go back to a shared Irish ancestor.

This means of course that I am skeptical of any large Fant presence in England that did not originate in Ireland.
 Why is that?

Because around the later 1500s they began to lose their Irish lands.. 1580s for sure..
 Many many men who are in Ireland in the late 1790s in Brigown Cork which is quite close to Tipperary and Limerick both are in certain areas of England by 1841 when census records begin.

Marriage records even sooner..Which places? Derbyshire.. Thos Fant Burial May 24 1712 Wirksworth Derbyshire..
 Durham..William Faint Gentleman's Servant and Rachel Wharton marriage St.Giles in the Field London..the family of Patrick Fant.. 
 Actually the families of 3 separate Patrick Fants and extended families, the families of 3 Jeremiah Mahers and 2 Jeremiah Fants.. these men were born in Brigown Cork ( rural Mitchelstown) before 1780..

Did they just flock off to an unknown place? Surely not.. Occasional records have always been popping up which lead us to believe they were always there but I think that since written records began in the 1550s in UK they were going to these places.

It has been called "The Nearest Place That Wasn't Ireland"

Motivation Monday- My extensive Donegal DNA matches

Looking and looking through the now online Parish records for Ireland..Doohan/Dugan/McClafferty/McFadden DNA matches are all intertwined..

81 % of people living where my Mary Doohan/Dugan Faunt was born ( the records are in Gortahork or Ray) are still Irish speakers ..


 It is said that this Colmcille ringed Celtic Cross is the tallest and oldest in Ireland..

Tombstone Tuesday ~ The last White Knight ~ Kilmallock Abbey Limerick

 In the center of the Choir lies Edmund Fitzgibbon the last White Knight who died in 1608. Edmund was married to Ellen Burgat daughter of Jenetta ffant and John Burgat of Fantstown Limerick.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Castle built by the Fant family in the 1300s ~ Fantstown Limerick

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Kilmallock Abbey Limerick

                                             

Lost their lives at Liscarroll Cork September 3rd, 1642 and the following epitaph is engraved on the wall at Kilmallock Abbey, St. Saviour's Church where they were inurned.
                            1642 
 Sept 3rd what year those figures tell, 
 Saw three youths inurned, untimely dead,
... Brothers and kinsmen pledged,in just war fell,
 King, Country God, approve wherefore they fell.
 Youth’s virgin purity, true martyr blood,
 Mark out their corpses from the mangled heap
 As lilies struggling amidst the ensanguined flood,
 Three deserved well- Three names thou marble keep
George, Edward Burgat   Brothers and
Alexander Burgat Nephew