Francis and Anne Leonard Armstrong (John F. Armstrong’s Parents) in Irish Census Records
February 9, 2016
Celtic Cross in County Sligo, Ireland, Photo used with permission from Val Robus at Magnumlady.com
My great-great-great grandparents, Francis and Anne Leonard Armstrong, were forced to move from their tenant farm in Kilcummin and Derreens Townlands in County Sligo in 1876. Following the sale of the Nicholson Estate, where Francis and Anne’s farm was located, the rent on their land almost doubled, and they moved to the nearby Townland of Tullyvellia.
The 1901 Irish Census: Still Living in Tullyvellia
There are no extant census records for County Sligo prior to 1901, but at the time of the 1901 Irish census Francis and Anne were still living on a farm in the Townland of Tullyvellia. According to the household information on Form A, they were both eighty and lived in a household of eight that included their daughter Anne, thirty-four, their son Thomas, forty-four, his wife, Bridget, and Thomas and Bridget’s three young children.
Everyone in the household was Roman Catholic, had been born in Sligo and could read and write except for Thomas’ two-year-old daughter. Thomas, the head of household, was a farmer and Francis was a retired farmer. Thomas, Bridget, Francis, and Anne were recorded as married. Francis and Anne were the only two in the family who could speak both English and Irish.
On Form B.1, the House and Building Return, Thomas Armstrong owned the family home and seven outbuildings. The family occupied three rooms in a house made of stone, brick, or concrete with three windows across the front, and a roof made of thatch or wood.
(Note: Thomas owned rather than leased the property. Land reform legislation in the previous decades had made it easier for tenant farmers to buy the land they had formerly leased on the large estates.)
Form B.1 gives April 26, 1901 as the date that Form A was collected. Francis Armstrong died approximately one month later on May 24, 1901 and was buried in Kilcummin Cemetery near the village of Cloonacool.
The 1911 Irish Census: Back in Derreens
Ten years later, in the household information on Form A of the 1911 census, Anne Armstrong, age ninety-one, was living in the Townland of Derreens with three of her children: James, sixty-seven, Mary, fifty-two, and Anne, forty-seven. All four members of the household were Roman Catholic and spoke English and Irish. All could read and write except for the elderly Anne, who was only able to read.
James, the head of the household, was a farmer, and he and his two sisters were unmarried. Anne, his widowed mother, had been married for a total of fifty-eight years and had given birth to nine live children, eight of whom were still living. (John F. Armstrong, her second child and my great-great grandfather, died in Milledgeville, Georgia in 1893 at the age of forty-eight.)
The House and Building Form, Form B.1, names James Armstrong as the owner of the property, where the house and five outbuildings were located. The house had four rooms, walls of stone, brick, or concrete and a roof made of slate, iron, or tiles. There were six windows across the front.
The Armstrong house had more windows across the front than any of the other houses listed in Derreens in 1911 on Form B.1, and its roof was built of more expensive material. None of the other houses in the townland had more than two or three front windows and none of them had roofs made of slate, iron, or tiles.
Anne Leonard Armstrong lived six more years until her death on February 2, 1917 at the age of ninety-seven. James died some time after 1911, while Mary died in 1919, and Anne, their sister, died in 1939.
The Armstrong farmhouse in Derreens was later sold out of the family. Interestingly, the house is not listed on Form B.1, the House and Building Form, in the 1901 census for Derreens. There also is no record in Derreens of James Armstrong, unmarried and approximately fifty-seven years of age at the time of the 1901 census.
About the 1901 and 1911 Irish Census Returns
The 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses are the only complete census records that survive from Ireland prior to 1921, when the island was partitioned into Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State. These records provide extensive information about individuals and families, including religious affiliation, age, occupation, literacy, fluency in the Irish language, the size of the family home and the materials used in its construction. The 1911 census also states how many years a woman was married, how many live children she birthed, and how many of those children were still living.
References
1901 Census of Ireland, County Sligo, population schedule, district electoral division (DED) Glendarragh, Townland of Tullyvellia, house 3, np, Francis Armstrong and Anne Armstrong in household of Thomas Armstrong; digital image, National Archives of Ireland, Census of Ireland 1901/1911 and and Census fragments and substitutes, 1821-1851 (http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Sligo/Glendarragh/Tullyvellia/1688902 : accessed 9 July 2014).
1911 Censuses of Ireland, population schedule, district electoral division (DED) Cloonacool, Townland of Derreens, house 16, np, Anne Armstrong in household of James Armstrong; digital image, National Archives of Ireland, Census of Ireland 1901/1911 and Census fragments and substitutes, 1821-1851 ( http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Sligo/Cloonacool/Derreens/773402 : accessed 9 July 2014).
“Public Member Trees”, database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed July 2014), “Van Sant-Hudson” family tree by Marie Van Sant Hudson, profile for John Francis Armstrong (1845-1893, b. Co. Sligo, Ireland, d. Milledgeville, GA, USA), documented data updated 2014.
For more information about the Irish Census, see What happened to the 19th century Irish Census returns?