The wife of John
Sproule of Curraghamulkin was known to the Edwards family historians. She was
Martha Sproule of Golan, the daughter of Robert Sproule of Golan and Martha
Edwards of Kilcroagh. The Edwards family were the landowning family in the
area. Martha was first cousin of Hugh Edwards of Castlegore, a Castle a mile to
the south west of Castlederg. In around 1668, their ancestor, another Hugh Edwards,
had purchased the whole of the ‘Manor of Hastings’, a large estate all round
Castlederg. They were an affluent family living in their Castle, until the family
crashed and burned round about this time at the end of the 1700s.
The Edwards family
historians knew that Martha Sproule of Golan who married John ‘Jack Roe’ Sproule
of Curraghamulkin, was the 2nd cousin of Hugh Edwards of Castlegore.
That was a fact. And yet Jack Elder in this ‘Notes and Queries’ note, was
asking them to explain something that John Inch had written. The Edwards
Historian answer in this ‘Notes and Queries’ volume was that John Inch was
wrong.
Now I know it, and Jack
Elder definitely knew it. When it came to family history, John Inch was always
right! (Or nearly always!) John Inch was born in 1795 in Ederny Bridge,
Fermanagh and he was an avid Sproule family historian from a young age. He
collected family histories in Ireland before he left for New Brunswick in Canada
in 1820, and over there, he gathered even more Sproule information from the
established Sproule settlers there.
His precious 40 precious
pages of Sproule information and family trees were seen by Jack Elder at the
end of the 1800s. It was on these that Jack Elder based all his early Sproule
trees.
Elder knew, what I now
know, that John Inch was very, very rarely wrong. All the research backs up
exactly what he wrote in those 40 pages.
And yet there was a
note of John Inch’s that puzzled Jack Elder greatly. It was about Elizabeth,
his grandmother who had married John ‘Jack Roe’ Sproule of Curraghamulkin. Elder
knew that John Inch grew up knowing his grandmother in Ireland, he talked to
her, and he recorded what she said. Surely he couldn’t be wrong?
Elder tells us in this
‘Notes and Queries’ volume that what John Inch wrote was:
“Of this family was Lady Ross, named Elizabeth Edwards,
who owned Castlegore estate in her own right. This family of Edwardses and our
ancestors of the Sproule family must have been related, for I have heard my grandmother,
Elizabeth Sproule (wife of John Sproule of Glenvale, Co Tyrone), say that she
and lady Ross were first cousins”
P. 289 Notes and Queries, https://archive.org/details/s8notesqueries07londuoft/page/290/mode/2up
John Inch was saying
that his grandmother was 1st cousin to Lady Ross, who is Olivia
Edwards of Castlegore. She was 1st cousin – not 2nd
cousin.
But now we know that the
person who was 2nd cousin to Lady Ross, Olivia Edwards, was Martha Sproule of Golan, who was the first wife of John of Curraghamulkin.
And we know that John
Inch was talking about a completely different person. She was Elizabeth, 2nd wife of
John Sproule of Curraghamulkin.
John Inch is telling us that his grandmother Elizabeth is another Edwards, and that she is, in fact, 1st cousin to Olivia Edwards of Castlegore.
Elizabeth, 2nd wife and widow of John ‘Jack Roe’ Sproule
of Curraghamulkin, is Elizabeth Edwards, the daughter of a brother of Hugh
Edwards of Castlegore.
Part 1 - John ‘Jack Roe’ Sproule of Curraghamulkin, The Context
Part 2 - John ‘Jack Roe’ Sproule of Curraghamulkin, Pieces of the Jigsaw.
Part 3 - John ‘Jack Roe’ Sproule of Curraghamulkin, the Record of his Death
Part 4 - John ‘Jack Roe’ Sproule of Curraghamulkin – and the Second Wife
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