Adam Beck

Notes:

Adam Beck was living at Granshagh, Barony of Lower Ardes in 1630 (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS 4770), also in 1663 (County Down Subsidy Rolls). According to J. W. Beck, Adam's direct descendants were still to be found in the neighbourhood in 1931. (Source: John W. Beck, A.M.I.E.E., "Beck of Northern Ireland", 1931)

Birth:
of Granshagh

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.

Peter married Katherina _____. Katherina and died. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events:

• Name: Katherina Beck