The Clondermot Sproules – the Irish Families and Godfrey Spruill

The first Clondermot family that were identified within the Sproule DNA Project are the descendants of John Sproul and Sarah Orr, who lived in the early 1800s in West Brook, Nova Scotia.

Their descendants who joined the Sproule DNA Project are very important to the whole project, and we will be forever grateful. What they gave us was the two essential elements to be able to identify a single Sproule line.  The first key element is the Y-DNA from a male member of a Sproule family who are prepared to invest in further testing so that we can achieve more refined results.

The second thing we need is that we have a validated family tree, one that takes us from the Project Member to a definite, identifiable ancestor. In this case, our Clondermot family had a validated tree from our Project Member to John Sproul of Nova Scotia,  born in 1771 in Londonderry. He and his wife Sarah Orr, arrived in Nova Scotia in 1814 settling first at Cross Roads and later at West Brook Hill. Their family tree is full of the names Samuel and John, suggesting that the origin is likely to be those of the Primity Sproules.

The Y-DNA results confirmed firstly that this family were definitely not Cowden Sproules, they were not the same family as the Donegal / Tyrone Sproules. The next level of testing gave us a definite mutation that this Clondermot family uniquely possesses.  We had the Clondermot Mutation, and we now had a tool to identify other Clondermot Sproules.

With our new-found knowledge, we have been able to identify another family, the Carnatreantagh Sproules. This family lived in Treantagh or Carnatreantagh in Conwall, County Donegal, and also in the adjacent townland of Dromore. The dominant names in this family are Hugh and John.

What struck me first about this Carnatreantagh Sproules was that they lived quite far away from the usual Sproule areas, and they were definitely there since the late 1700s, if not before. I felt that they actually have been from any Sproule family and I had loads of ideas, but I never would have guessed that they were Clondermot Sproules. Only the DNA was able to tell us that!

The earliest Carnatreantagh we know of there is Hugh Sproule, named in the Flaxgrowers list for Conwall in 1796 – this must be Hugh in Dromore / Treantagh. So this family came from Clondermont in the mid to late 1700s.

The Evish Sproules have not been tested to the same level, but the pattern is almost identical to the Carnatreantagh families – they are certainly Clondermot Sproules. The earliest certain ancestor there is George Sproule of Evish who died on 4 Jun 1880 at age 68. There was a George there in the Tithe Applotment, a likely father of this George.  

This mutation has been named Clondermot for the area where the family was first seen in Ireland, but of course this Sproule family came from Scotland. We don't know where at the moment, but another Sproule family who also carry this mutation, might one day lead us to the answer.

This other family is not an Irish Sproule family, but they carry our Clondermot Mutation. The father of this family is a man called Godfrey Spruill, who went straight from Scotland to Virginia in America, in the mid to late 1600s. That tells us that our Irish families got this mutation in Scotland, prior to their arrival in Ireland.

The US family is quite well known in Sproule circles, largely because they have been so well researched, and also because there are so many descendants. The first record of Dr Godfrey Spruill  is in October 1684, when he got a patent for 348 acres in James City County. On 1 August 1689, Godfrey Spruill and two others were called to give testimony about the winner of a horse race at Malvern Hills in Henrico County, Virginia.  The record of that event says that Godfrey was about 39 years old. So Godfrey Spruill was born in 1645.  Around the turn of the century, probably in 1703, Dr. Godfrey Spruill moved to Scuppernong, on the south side of Albemarle Sound, at what is now Tyrrell County, North Carolina. He died there on 15 Aug 1718. The predominant names in his descendants are John, Joseph and Samuel.

So we know that Dr Godfrey Spruill was born somewhere in Scotland in about 1645, and he was born with our Clondermot Mutation. It is said that he came from Stirlingshire, in Scotland, but there is no record of this as yet, as far as I know. This is important because there is a good chance that a record will someday be found of Godfrey Spruill in Scotland, and, when it does, the origins of our Clondermot Sproules can also be discovered.

References:

• Thanks to Cathy Sproule for information on the family of John Sproule and Sarah Orr. Thanks to Lynda Chicorli for the Carnatreantagh and Dromore family information. Thanks to Lynn Strand and Doreen McGerrigle for the Evish family.
• Thanks to Dr Jeffrey Owens, history professor at Tyler Junior College for information on Dr Godfrey Spruill,  and also to James Richard Sproule, in his book Eight Centuries of the Spreull and Sproule families.