Was this Irish ancestor of mine most likely originally Catholic? (Genealogy-related)

In My Humble Opinion
1

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my hobbies is genealogy, a natural outgrowth of my mania for history. I’m curious about the origins of an ancestor of mine, James KELLY, but I don’t know even about early 19th century Irish history or Catholicism to figure this out on my own. So I turn to you, O knowledgeable genealogy fanatic Dopers/kind-hearted Irish Dopers.

James KELLY, according to his tombstone and census documentation, was born about 1783 somewhere in Ireland. Without anything more than his name and approximate date of birth, finding him in Ireland seems impossible, especially considering that every third Irishman in those days was named James Kelly. We don’t know when he arrived in America, but family lore has it that he was a stowaway on a ship to New Orleans (while romantic, I have to imagine this story might be a little exaggerated). It seems possible that he did arrive through New Orleans, however. Regardless, he’d probably arrived in America sometime between 1800 and 1810, and married Catherine CLAWSON, from a family that had been settled in the Natchez district since 1791. They were living in Jefferson co. MS by 1820 and produced a large family of children.

Now, my question is, was James KELLY most likely born and raised Catholic or Protestant? His wife and her family were Baptist, and their children melded into the society of antebellum Mississippi (well, sort of; see this poston their sons Abram and Abel killing their sister’s suitor). I wonder if he was an Irish Prostestant who settled among the English-speaking, Prostestant communities of what would become part of the state of Mississippi, or a Catholic who found it prudent to assimilate into this community when he married a Baptist woman. Almost all I have to go on are his names and the names he gave his children, several of which (Abram, Abel, Catherine) were clearly chosen from their mother’s side of the family. The children were, in order: Abel, Abraham (Abram), Mary, William, Elizabeth, Martha Melinda, Ruth Eleanor, and James Washington.

Unfortunately for me, anyway, most of the literature I could find on Irish immigration to America was on the refugees from the Famine, and James KELLY escaped that by several decades. I don’t know much about the demographics of Irish immigrants between 1800-1810, their likely origins, or the reasons a young Irishman might’ve had to take off for New Orleans in those days.

2

Kelly is generally a Scottish name, indicating a likelihood that he may have been descended from the Ulster Scots. The fact that two of his children were named William and Mary also points *strongly *in a Protestant direction!

3

This Wiki article on the name says that it can be of Irish, Scottish or English origin. The list of Kellys on that page includes two Catholic archbishops (Michael Kelly and Thomas C. Kelly) – I think a Kelly is more likely than not a Catholic.

4

I’d probably guess Ulster Scot Protestant based off:
The surname is quite common in Northern Ireland among protestants,
The estimated year of migration. Until the 1850’s the majority of immigrants from Ireland were protestants from Ulster.
The marriage to a baptist woman - it is more likely that a Protestant would marry a Baptist than a Catholic marrying a baptist.

5

Given that in the period before the Famine that the majority of Catholics had no reason to emigrate, and also the fact that they were likely too poor to afford passage anyway, I think it an even bigger likelihood that he must have been Protestant, and if Scots probably entered Ireland during the period of The Ascendancy.

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6

I would automatically see Kelly as a Catholic name. I’m basing this on the number of Kellys I know in Ireland (about twenty) and the fact that they are all, without exception, Catholic.

7

Irish Catholics had a really good reason to emigrate before the famine, and that’s that, like you said, they were poor. About 6000 Irish emigrated to the US in 1816, up to about 12,000 in 1818. In fact, the Erie Canal was mostly built by Irish immigrants.

There’s a common perception that Irish Catholic immigration to America started with the potato famine, but it’s really not true. Irish Catholics have been coming to America since it was a colony, and the grandson of an Irish Catholic immigrant was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence.

8

Maybe the cemetery info where he’s buried - would that have been a time of Catholic vs. Prot burial grounds in the US?

9

There wasn’t a Catholic cemetery in that county. At the time, the only churches were Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist. They were buried in a private family cemetery.

10

And, if he married a Baptist woman, it’s possible that he converted when he came over.