Hello members,

Does anyone have a QUIN family in Armagh in their genealogy? I'm looking for my only Irish ancestor (so far), Thomas QUIN, born approximately 1760.

Thomas QUIN, aged 18, joined the Royal Artillery on 02 August 1778. His record states that he was born "Armagh parish, Armagh city, Armagh county". The record gives a physical description of Thomas, and the fact that he could read and write. His spelling his surname with one N suggests that his family were Church of Ireland. (Catholics tend to use the two-N spelling, Quinn.)

Thomas was "inlisted" by Corporal Purcell, along with several other young men, into the "Detachment of 5 Company", R.A. He was posted to Plymouth Dock, Devon, England, where he married Charlotte MASON in 1781.

The couple apparently had at least two children, John Thomas QUIN, born Plymouth ~1782, and William QUIN, born Woolwich, Kent (home base for the Royal Artillery) in 1787.

Their son John Thomas QUIN is my ancestor and I know the outline of his history. John Thomas QUIN joined the Royal Artillery in 1793 as a drummer and trumpeter, aged eleven, and remained in the R.A. most of his working life.

The Armagh soldier Thomas QUIN died in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1792. I do not know what became of his English wife Charlotte nor of their son William.

The parentage and earlier history of Thomas QUIN of Armagh is also unknown to me. In Bradshaw's Directory for 1819, there are some QUINs in English Street, Armagh, including a John and a Thomas. There are also voters' records and wills for various Armagh QUINs in the mid 1800s, but I have no clue to whether any of them are related to my Thomas.

--Jane E