Hudson Genealogy - Northern Ireland Road Block

After watching a webcast from Ancestry.com about using blogging to share your family genealogy but also to attract distant cousins or relatives to assit in the search and details, I thought I would give it a try.  So here goes.

My current genealogy research is mainly focused on my spouses family.  Hudson.  From all the infomation I have to date they are from the County of Londonderry (Derry) in Northern Ireland.

Hudson is not a common name in those parts and I am making the assumption that all of the Hudson's from the Magherafelt area are somehow realated if I go back far enough.

I have been fortunate to find a couple of Hudson's still living in the area that have provided some information and just recently made contact with 3rd cousins still living in the area.  Now my hope is that they will be willing to answer my many questions in hopes of knocking down that road block.


I have found 4 separate Hudson branches out of Magherafelt.  My hope is that someone out there can help.  My best guess is that if I can just get family members from the 1700's, early 1800's we can find the siblings that bring it all together.  Here are the oldest family member I have for each limb.

Branch 1
Henry Hudson b: 1775  married  Margaret
 - son:  James: Birth 1802 in Tullylinkisay, Londonderry 
                        Death/burial Aug 1847 in Eglish churchyard
 - son: Francis: Born 1805

Branch 2
John Hudson B: 1840  married Margaret Marks
 - son:  Thomas: Born 1859 Ballymaguigan, Magherafelt, Londonderry
 - daughter:  Ester: Born 1864 Ballymaguigan
 - son: Henry:  Born 1866 Ballymaguigan
 - son: William: Born: 1868 Ballymaguigan
 - son: Robert:  Born: 1873 Ballymaguigan
 - daughter: Born: Mary 1876 Ballymaguigan

Branch 3
Thomas Hudson Born 1795
 - son: James Hudson Born 1824 Ballymaguigan   married Ann Jane Burnett

Branch 4
Hugh Hudson  Birth: 15 Sep 1833 in Londonderry 
immigrated to USA abt 1855

contact me if you can help

more to come  :)