John McILROY ¹

   User ID: 306.

1779 Tax Roles - John McIlroy appears in Tyrone twp of Cumberland Co., PA. He was listed as owning 100 acres, two horses and one head of cattle.
1782 Tax roles - He had added three head of cattle.
1790C: There was a J McElroy (difficult to read) in Cumberland Co. with 2 males over 16, 3 or 5 males under 16 and possibly 2 females. This may have been one of his sons, John or James. James was said to have taken over the family farm at the death of the father.
John was not on the 1767 tax list nor was he on the 1790 or 1800 federal censuses. John and his wife most likely had daughters, but there are no records.

[To my knowledge, this John has not been identified as a member of any of the documented McIlroy/McElroy families in PA during the colonial era. - zhm]
¹

  Research Notes:

"John McIlroy of Pennsylvania and some of his descendants" is a primary source of information on the early roots of our family and the linkage of the Union County, OH and "West Coast" McIlroy's. I have dubbed the work as the "Book of John". It was compiled by Alfred Everett Shane in the 1980's including data collected by his granduncle, John W McIlroy (5th gen. 1861-1946), during the 1930's. John W (5th gen.) shared his first twenty years with his grandfather John W (3rd gen. 1808-1884), the grandson of John, the emigrant. Copies of Alfred Shane's work are in the LDS Church files and at the Jefferson Co., OH Historical Society in Stuebenville, OH. Several copies were distributed among his relatives.
This information was found by Suzanne Rising in the 1990's and to it she added data on James Samuel McIlroy, the eldest son of Samuel listed in the "Book of John" and his descendants. A copy of Susan Rising's work, "James McIlroy and some of his descendants" is in the public library of Marysville, Union Co., OH. This I refer to as the "book of James".
The "Book of John" relates:
"John McIlroy, born in 1725, came to America from Edinburgh, Scotland in 1748 alone and stayed for two years in NY before moving on to Tyrone twp, Cumberland Co., PA where he spent the rest of his life, dying in 1787."
zhm comment
In the 1880 census, Samuel's son, John W (5th gen.) noted his father was born in Ireland. Samuel's brother, John, was also noted as born in Ireland by his son, Robert.
Tyrone twp was created in 1756 and included all of Cumberland county west of the Juniata river, in the area that is now Perry County (formed in 1820). Tyrone was later divided to create several other twp's, so the McIlroy property may or may not have been in the Tyrone twp, Perry Co. of 2005.
In my youth, discussing the proper spelling of the family name, my father repeated a family story that five brothers "came over" and changed the spelling of the name. Unfortunately, I did not ask further or do not recall the rest of the conversation. Those five may have been the listed sons of John.
There is no doubt that the family is of Scotch origin and was adamant of their Scotch heritage and their Protestant religion. My guess is that John, possibly born in Scotland, started his family in northern Ireland, as did so many other Scotch-Irish families, before immigrating to colonial PA circa 1770.
I further believe that Samuel, born in Ireland, married in PA and his son, James S, was born and/or raised in Washington Co, PA.
"The Scotch-Irish McElroys in America AD 1717 - AD 1900" by Rev John McElroy, notes the heritage of about 25 McElroy family's. All are noted as McElroy, though we know some did, and still do, use the "McIlroy" spelling. The vast majority of these families came from County Down, Ireland.
A comment in the "book of John", attributed to John, 5th generation, noted that, in the early days, we were related to all of the McIlroy families that used the "McIlroy" spelling.
The most well documented of those is the "Kentucky" clan. The "Kentucky" McIlroys came from County Down, Ireland about 1729. They settled in Bucks Co., PA for a time and moved on to Cumberland Co. were they lived for some 25 yrs. This is the same period as "our" clan was reported in Cumberland. Most of that clan moved south to VA, KY and AR. They held to the "McIlroy" spelling and "Samuel" was an often used name. "Samuel" is not used as often in other McElroy/McIlroy clans.

I believe our John was member of the "Kentucky"" McIlroy clan who brought his family to America circa 1770. He may have been born in Scotland and moved to Northern Ireland where sons, Samuel & John where born.
Hopefully, someone will, one day, be able to prove or correct these conclusions -zhm ¹

John married Unknown about 1754 in <Ireland>.¹