Adam Beck

Other Events:

• Occupation: Farmer
• Will: 14 Mar 1699; Reference T2710

Notes:

Adam Beck, farmer and wool merchant, who was living at Amullabrack 1669. He died in the summer of 1699, his will being dated March 14 of that year and proved in the following July by his wife Margaret at Armagh Diocesan Court. Therein he mentions his "good son Robert," his wife Margaret and appoints as overseer his brother John Beck of Lisburn. He also directs that his body be buried "in the parich yard neere my fathers greeve." (Source: John W. Beck, A.M.I.E.E., "Beck of Northern Ireland", 1931)


Will:

WILL
Adam Beck of Belimacally, parich of Amullabrack in county Ardmagh.
Dated 14 March 1699.
In the nem of God Amen, I Adam Beck of Belimcally, Amullabrack bein well in yeers and not Knowing how soon it may please to God to call upon me of this live which I hope, in his blessed mercy will be a better one. I do mak this my latter will and testemend. I committ my soule to God from whom I live and have my bein, and bodie to be buried decente in paric yard neere my father's greeve. To good sun Robert my freehoulds ___ and messuage comp___ment, also stok of cattel and half my wool in stok. I leeve to my wife Margaret my wooven loomb and large cubbert in lofte on screwators which was my father's cubbert and haf wool in stok and puter dishes. I leave to Alex Watt oke chest and scarif and releese him of bond due me for £5 more or less. I revoke other testemends and publis this___ my wife sole executor and request my brother John Beck of Lisburne, to be overseer and to settel my just dettes. In witness I have set my hand and seal this day 14th Marche 1699.

Witnesses: Jon Mc Farland, Owen McConnel, James Craig.
Proved at Armagh Diocesan Court by Margaret Beck, sole executor, July 1699.

Family/Spouse: Margaret _____. Margaret was born in 1638 in Mullaghbrack, County Armagh, Ireland; died after 1699. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Robert Beck was born in 1660 in Mullaghbrack, County Armagh, Ireland; died in 1726; was buried in 1726 in Mullaghbrack, County Armagh, Ireland.

Notes:

John Beck, who was living at Amullabrack, Barony of O'Nielan, 1630, tenant on Antony Cope's estate, also there in 1663 (Armagh Subsidy Rolls). He died prior to 1669 and was buried in Mullaghbrack Parish Churchyard, reference to the grave being made in the will of his son Adam. He left at least two sons. Mullaghbrack is a parish in Armagh in the Barony of Fews Lower. (Source: John W. Beck, A.M.I.E.E., "Beck of Northern Ireland", 1931)

Birth:
of O'Nielan, presumed of London

Other Events:

• Name: William Becx
• Name: Wyllem Becks

Notes:

...The surname of Beck is not common in Northern Ireland, and prior to 1850 was only represented by three groups of families resident respectively in the Ardes district of County Down, the parish of Donegore in County Antrim, and in those portions of the Baronies of Upper Iveagh and O'Nielan, lying between Dromore and Hamiltonsbawn. In these districts a large number of families owe their progenitors to the Plantaion of Ulster, which occurred towards the end of the sixteenth and early in the seventeenth centuries, when the escheated estates of the native chieftains were occupied by British settlers. A tradition that the three groups of Beck families were collateral kinsmen descended from one of these settlers, or an earlier army servitor is substantially confirmed. Subsequent to 1850 a much wider distribution of the name is found, but with one exception, where recent English origin is definite, all existing families claim an ancestry in one or other of the three groups.
...The earliest records detailing individual Plantation settlers are contained in the Ulster Muster Rolls of 1630 (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 4770), and therein are included the names of Adam Beck and John Beck, both described as "of Granshagh, Barony of Lower Ardes," and John Beck, tenant on Antony Cope's estate, Barony of O'Nielan. The consensus of evidence indicates that the heads of these families were brothers who had settled in these districts prior to 1630. The previous history of these two progenitors is unknown, but a crest which occurs on seals, bookplates, etc., of many descendant families affords a clue in its marked similarity to that included in the armorial bearings of Beck of London (Harl. Sco., vol. xv.). For the most part successive generations were yeomen or tenant farmers and landowners, occupying holdings in those districts where virgin soil was first tilled by their Plantation ancestors, the name recurring in the scanty local records of the Baronies mentioned, and showing continuous association through nine or ten generations during three hundred years. One member, John Beck, of Lisburn and Annacloy rose to a position of wealth during the close of the sixteenth century, but in the next generation his sons, with one exception, are again found in the tenant farmer class. Offshoot families settled in Belfast from 1650 onwards, but no continuity of descent in this town is found, until its increasing industrial importance during the last century attracted several members, some of which were notable in professional and commercial activities. The further family at Donegore was founded about a century later that the Muster Roll record, by a younger son of the O'Nielan branch who deserted his paternal district - and settled in County Antrim. The territorial association of the name with the Barony of Upper Iveagh receives mention in Hume's "Origin of the Population of County Down," reprinted in vol. i "Ulster Journal of Archaeology." This reference applies to the descendants of John Beck of O'Nielan, and commencing with the two brothers, a connected pedigree of this line can be traced.