For any researchers that are trying to research the same line of McCollough’s that we have been, here is something to take note of. It may save you some time, but we are just putting the information out here.
My daughter Bethany and I have been researching the McCollough’s for over 20 years. In all that time, we have not found any documentation of where John McCollough Sr., his wife Sarah and their children came from when they emigrated to the US. We have seen information where people have stated that John and Sarah came to the US in 1780 and came from Ireland. Supposedly they came to New Jersey when they arrived. We have not found a ships list with them on it, or not yet, so we are not sure if Ireland was where they left from. We also can not find what Sarah’s maiden name was, so that has made the search even more difficult.
We do know that in 1792 that John and Sarah purchased land in PA. If they did come to New Jersey first when they emigrated, then sometime during the 12 year period from their arrival to when it shows they purchased land, they moved from New Jersey to Washington Co., Pennsylvania.
We also know that our John McCollough Sr. is not the John McCollough that many have said was actually born in New Jersey. If you check the dates and names of that John and of his family and their names, you will find that information is different and it is not our line of McCollough’s.
We are going with the assumption that John did come to the USA from Northern Ireland, having moved there from Scotland. We have discovered that many many of the early records of Ireland and Scotland have been destroyed during wars, fires and other events. We were told that unless we knew exactly the place they were living at the time they left to come to the US, that it would be virtually impossible to find records for them. Once you start researching John McCollough in Ireland, you will soon find out that there are hundreds and hundreds of John McCullough’s, also with varying spellings of the name of McCollough. John not having a middle name or initial that we are aware of, or a maiden name of Sarah to trace her family, it has left a strong brick wall intact that we just can not seem to break through.
If anyone has any other information that might give us a different scenario to consider, please let us know. Even after having a close male relative do a Y DNA test, we still can not find the common ancestor that links our John to any of his other family that were or are still in Ireland and Scotland.