HAMILTON
MEMOIRS
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION (1891)
The following Notices were compiled
mainly from original sources to which reference is made from time to time.
The Compiler at the outset disregarded
all statements which had come to his hands relating to the Rev. Nicholas
Hamilton and his ancestors other than those borne out by documentary evidence,
and proceeded to construct the genealogical tree upon the information derived
from such documents; he has been
careful to verify from more than one source every important statement whenever
possible to do so, and to test the accuracy of his conclusions by comparison of
dates and other particulars; wherever
any reasonable doubt appeared to exist for such conclusions, he has given the
data upon which he relied so that the reader may judge for himself.
The documents to which reference is
made consist principally of Chancery Bills, Equity Exchequer Bills, and
testamentary papers such as wills and letters of administration deposited in
the Public Record Office, Dublin. The
number of litigious proceedings in which different members of the family were
engaged in the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, no doubt
arose from the complications caused by the Irish Rebellion of 1641, the Great
Rebellion, and the Williamite Wars of 1689-91.
The documents relating to the Chancery
and Equity Exchequer Bills contain a mine of information for the genealogical
enquirer, and it is to be regretted that the indices to them do not give more
particulars, so as to avoid the necessity of referring to many documents in
search for a few.
The military particulars were supplied
by Lieut-Colonel Charles Hamilton, late of "The Buffs", to whom the
compiler is indebted for his kind assistance.
Everard
Hamilton
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION (1920)
The first edition of this little work
is out of print, and was too limited to supply copies to many persons who
desired to possess it.
This, taken in conjunction with the
fact that many interesting details bearing upon the earlier history of the
family have come to light since the issue of the former edition, and that the
names and particulars of many members of the family not included in that
edition have now been added, must be taken to justify the issue of a new
edition.
Several of the notes in the first
edition relate to legal documents and official entries of various kinds which
are not considered to be of general interest, and are therefore omitted.
The compiler takes this opportunity of
acknowledging his indebtedness to Mr. Tenison Groves for the many particulars
he has supplied from time to time from the records in the Public Record Office,
Dublin; also to Miss Catherine Jane Hamilton, for examining and extracting MSS.
In the British Museum; also to Dr. Charles H Thompson, for much interesting
information obtained at Somerset House and the British Museum and elsewhere.
Everard
Hamilton
PREFACE TO A REPRODUCTION
Having been left but one copy of this
splendid book by my father, I have retyped it with a view to making it
available to further generations. In
this electronic age, I also plan to place a copy on the World Wide Web to
enable access for research and feedback.
I have taken the liberty of updating
it with respect to my immediate line and adding a continuation of the pedigree
tables for that line at Appendix 1.
As far as I am able, I have reproduced
Everard Hamilton's work verbatim with a very small number of obvious
corrections and some additions in Chapter I that I have derived from
information found on the World Wide Web at:
www.stirnet.com/html/genie/genfam.htm
http://home.att.net/~hamiltonclan/HamiltonHx.htm
Where I have added any text to his
Chapters, it is either in italics or marked as a footnote.
Colin
Fendall Butler Hamilton
cbh(at)dip.demon.co.uk
March
2003
Any comments on this booklet would be
welcome at the above e-mail address.