Golias/Galias unusual forename in Ireland ?

ifconfig

I have been doing some amateur genealogical research for some time to follow up a family folklore story related to me by a distant relative on our male line.

Before I disclose the details of the folklore - just to get an objective view.....

I've been looking at the record of some people who were around Ardee and hinterlands in the 18th and 19th century.
The surname has been recorded as both "Hann" and "Hand".
I realise that Hand is an old Gaelic surname in the Northeast and surrounds.
In fact, I think Eanna ni Lamhna is probably Hand by birth (?).

In any case, the name which is of distinct interest to me is that of a man who has been recorded as Golias or Galias Hand on the 1740 Louth Corn Census and the 1796 flax growers list.
He appeared to farm between Ardee and Dunleer in a small townland now known as Tullydonnell.
I also have his death record via IFHF and his date of death is recorded as 29 November 1807.
Assuming he was at least 20 when recorded on the corn census as a household head (in all likelhood a bit older again) that would have made him a fair 87-90 at the age of death.

When IFHF was more open I tried to see if there were any folks on any baptismal/marriage/death registers in the wider 32 counties over their archive with a similar first name and I got nothing.

So , there you go .. I have the same name Galias (corn census), Golias (flax census), Golias (death @ Togher parish, Louth 1807)

Of you more experienced or sleuth like genealogists....
What do you make of the forename.
I will explain later the theory I am working under....

-ifc

Coolnabacky1873

Much like yourself I plugged the name into some of the usual websites and didn't see any examples.

Wikipedia has an article where it talks about Golias being a medieval Latin version of Goliath. Also there is a reference to a fictional Bishop Golias.

Maybe he came from a line of big/tall men?!

ifconfig

Just to give some more context to my original posting....

The family folklore I was made aware of was that our own family plus another family had come into Ireland via Germany/France at some point in history.
Our surname is now "Little".

Little is typically either Scots Border (via 17th century Ulster plantation), English and also a scatter of people in Monaghan/Fermanagh/Cavan who bore the surname O'Beaghain and , depending on the registrars became either Beggan or Little.
This distant cousin in what we believe is our male line which was in Louth from at least 1745-1900s was given the family lore that our ancestors were Klein (German for small/little) and that the family adopted a literal translation as part of assimilating into Irish society.
The other pertinent info was that the family were said to have a kinship with another German immigrant family named Hann/Hahn and that both families for one time settled in rural Louth near Ardee.

Partial records back some of this story up but fail to completely solve the riddle of how both families ended up in Louth.
A William/Wilhelm Klein and Katharine Hann (with children) are listed on the muster lists of Palatine immigrants who remained in "the Pale" as such and didn't become settled into West Limerick, Wexford, Tipperary, Carlow, Kerry.
The records show W.Klein still around Dublin by 1720 after the exodus of the Palatines who just didn't settle due to the culture shock and expectation/disappointment of coming to Ireland to escape rechid weather conditions and hardship.

I have found records in the connecting parishes of surname "Cleen" in 1760s and it never recurs after that.
In fact Littles spring up in that parish in successive generations.
We don't seem to be on the Hearth Rolls in 1660s but we are on the Religious census of 1766 (as Protestants, although our family became Catholic rather quicker than might have been expected given Penal laws, etc).
The dates seem to suggest an arrival later than Cromwellian/Williamite wars and early into the Georgian period or slightly earlier again.

William was a particularly common male name in all generations and it is quite possible this was to pay tribute to the "founder" who took the bold step of leaving the Palatinate in treacherous conditions into rough conditions in London while awaiting eventual settlement in Ireland.

There was a grocer named Hann in Ardee at the turn of the century and I've connected him to a family on the borders of North East Meath and Mid Louth/Ardee. They were COI but also converted to RC ahead of ne temere, etc.

The record of Golias or Galias Hand is interesting.
Some of the Meath "Hanns" were later recorded as "Hand".
Hand is an indigenous Louth/Meath/Monaghan name but there is always pressure for unusual outside names to conform.

Golias is intriguing.
There is a St Golias , who was mythical and a bit of a rascal by all accounts.
St Gallus, on the other hand was purportedly an Irish born saint who travelled to Lake Contanz area and spread the good word around time of Columbanus, etc. He established a town/church called St Gallen.
Gallus is a not entirely rare male first name in Baden/Wuertemmberg, Alsace and in the areas close to the Palatinate where the Palatines migrated to Ireland via London and Rotterdam in 1709.
I find the name really odd for 18th century Louth, to be honest based on reams of other records that I've seen.
It is either a nickname.
Even more intriguingly, Hahn means rooster in German and Gallus is the Latin term. Might he have changed his surname to "Hand" and kept a sly humorous nickname to the origin of his surname ? Idle speculation


The paucity of birth/marriage records for Palatine immigrants who remained around Dublin doesn't help.
Y-DNA might help as there were other Kleins who migrated out of the Palatinate in later waves and made it to the "New World".
Several significant branches of them have contributed Y-DNA to familytreedna, for example.

So, that's the story so far.
A lot of it is speculation piled on top of real birth/census/pseudo census records and a lot of what could be coincidence or absolute proof of the Palatine German connection.

I've relayed the story on to a man named Hank Jones who is a compendium of knowledge on the Palatine lineages to both Ireland , US and Canada.
He has published several volumes on the topic and is fascinated also in this story.
We are in the unfortunate situation though, of not having the linking records to show how Wilhelm Klein, wife and offspring might have ended up in Louth.
One wild speculative guess on my part is that they may have befriended some Huguenots in Dublin while there and got the opportunity to land up into the areas of mid-Louth when a cambric linen weaving factory and supply chain was introduced there in the late 1730s.
Again .. absolute speculation.....


It is a long shot that there are other cousins who know this story and it remained closely guarded but then again the internet is a great place for linkages to be discovered.

—ifc

cormacocomhrai

This is very unlikely given the family background but would there be any chance that it'd be a corruption of the Gaelic name Giolla Íosa meaning servant of Jesus? Would that name have any connection to where they lived? Saint/holy well etc.

ifconfig

Interesting suggestion Cormac.

I have slight doubts on account of the tendency in 18th century to de-Gaelicise especially in the Pale areas.
I should, however, check the local geography as you suggest, just in case as it is always good to keep an open mind on these things.

My other theories are
Golias === Georg Elias
Golias === Large stature .. reference to Biblical Goliath.
Golias === corruption of Gallus (St Gallus , Irish Saint who spread word to Switzerland/Germany) and also ironically the Latin word for cockerel (Hahn being the German word).

I know from some Baptismal records I found for Syddan (Lobinstown, north Meath quite close to Ardee road into Louth) that a family named Hann were on the COI registers, some converted and changed their surname to Hand.
That wouldn't be widely known.
I honed in on the Hann records (IFHF) on account of the story of the Hahn/Hanns having being kinship with another German Palatine family named Klein (from which we are purported to have come).
Those records are for 1820s/30s and the first names include George, Anthony and other more indigenous Irish names such as Patrick.
While Hand would be generally a midlands native Irish name those COI Hanns could quite well have been descendants of the Palatine family who I am researching and it is interesting that some living Louth/Meath Hands may not come from the Irish root that would ordinarily have been expected.
The appearance of Golias Hand adds more intrigue to the mix

cormacocomhrai wrote: »

This is very unlikely given the family background but would there be any chance that it'd be a corruption of the Gaelic name Giolla Íosa meaning servant of Jesus? Would that name have any connection to where they lived? Saint/holy well etc.

cormacocomhrai

I think we both know that the odds of it being a Gaelic name are a one in a million shot. Still though, good to be open minded.

I think that there was much more immigration into Ireland from the continent than is commonly thought. I'm not saying that it was a huge wave of people but immigration did exist.

dubhthach

ifconfig wrote: »

<<--snip-->>
Our surname is now "Little".

Little is typically either Scots Border (via 17th century Ulster plantation), English and also a scatter of people in Monaghan/Fermanagh/Cavan who bore the surname O'Beaghain and , depending on the registrars became either Beggan or Little.

<<--snip-->>

Y-DNA might help as there were other Kleins who migrated out of the Palatinate in later waves and made it to the "New World".
Several significant branches of them have contributed Y-DNA to familytreedna, for example.

<<--snip-->>
—ifc

With regards to "Little"/Ó BEAGÁIN -- in the context of the North-East the name Ó BEAGÁIN is connected to the wider Kingdom of Oirialla (Aírghialla). There are two genetic clusters know called:

[*]Airghialla I
[*]Airghialla II


"Arighialla I" is concentrated among surnames in origin in eastern Oirialla (Oriel) specifically those of Monaghan, whereas Airghialla II is concentrated in what is now Fermanagh specifically among surnames connected to Maguire kingship of Fermanagh.

Of course the presence of two distinctive clusters does break the ancient genealogy connections which put all of the families of Airghialla as been descended from the three Colla's (the two clusters last shared common ancestor 3,500-4,000 years ago in comparison!)

http://www.peterspioneers.com/colla.htm

With regards to Palatine ancestry a Y-Chromosome test would probably be quite usefull, in showing origin on the continent (especially with regards to surnames that would be shown to match your sample)

ifconfig

I had looked into the Beggan/Airghiallach root alright given the proximity of Louth to Monaghan.
Mind you most of the Beggan/Littles seem to have been around Ballybay, Clones, Fermanagh and I have heard in folklore that Padraig Livingstone a cleric and genealogist had once told a student that the Beggans/O'Beaghain were a splinter of the Maguires of Fermanagh.

Little is intriguing because some (Cavan/Monaghan/Fermanagh) are widely assumed to be just a surname change of the Beggans and familytree DNA confirms this for relatively small samples so far.
However, the northern counties have a higher density of Littles (some spelling Lyttle) who are part of the 1601 and later plantations and most have their root in Dumfries where the name is most common in the UK.
The Scots variant are said to derive their name from a River Liddle in the borders and the Littles (along with Beatty/Elliots, etc) from Scotland have been always known as part of the Reiver/Riding clans of the Scots lowlands borders.
The name also occurs within more southerly parts of Britain and it is possible that some on this island came as part of Cromwellian armies as well as land adventurers.

I have also recently researched a family with Little surname who were in Monaghan and my initial conclusion is that their group may have originated from some agricultural workers settled to assist the Leslie family lands near Glaslough, Monaghan.

The family narrative which we have concerning ou Palatine connection is borne out by the appearance of the W.Klein on Dublin registers of Palatines which were taken to account for the spend on their upkeep which was sponsored by Queen Anne and government.

I agree that Y-dna may prove to be useful technique for us.
The narrative we have been told about includes Alsace areas, the kinship with Hann/Hahn family and the specific information about the name changing from Klein to Little. Unfortunately name changes are difficult to track because there would not have seen to have been a "deed poll" type process back in the early 1700s and surname changes weren't entirely uncommon because of the earlier practice of registrars encouraging the dropping of O' and other more extreme anglicisation of Irish surnames.
There is at least one family with an Alsace area connection known as Cline in USA who have contributed a good deal of Y-dna for studies and they have a paper lineage back to the 1500s.
It will be interesting to see if we get a match with them if we go ahead and do Y-DNA. The only other complicating factor is that Klein itself is a rather common name in Germany.

—ifc

daithiobeag

Golias + giollaiosa (servant of god) was a surname - more common surname mac giollaiosa - Gilleece etc. Seems was rendered as Giles in English?