In 2003 I visited Northern Ireland, which is a modern country that contains six of the original nine counties of the old province of Ulster. I visited the cities of Armagh, Omagh, and Belfast. There appears to be confusion in some of the literature between the town of Armagh in County Armagh and the town of Omagh in County Tyrone, which are only a few miles apart. Both were originally part of Ulster. The Genealogy Center in Armagh was closed, but I was told that their resources pertain only to the last 200 years or so. I visited the local museum and was told that any records from the 1600s and 1700s would be in Belfast. I was told that there was a 1703 plat of all lands in the Armagh area, but I was never able to find such a document. I found no genealogy resources in Omagh, and the genealogy library at the Ulster American Folk Park north of Omagh was closed. In Belfast, I visited the genealogy center in the Linen Hall Library. The only related publication that I found there was a book titled Emigrants to Pennsylvania 1641-1819, published by the Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc. of Baltimore, MD in 1978. Items listed in it included:
1. An account of servants bound and assigned before James Hamilton, Mayor of Philadelphia, on 15 Sep 1746. One of those was a Samuel Vernor who was bound as an apprentice to John Bruno of Philadelphia, blockmaker, for six years from that date to be taught the trade of blockmaker, to have two quarters of schooling at an evening school, to learn to write and cypher, and to pay the customary dues. (He might have been the son of the John Verner/Vernor who died in Lancaster County, PA in 1754.)
2. Jacob Vernon of Chester County acquired a servant on 21 Apr 1746.
3. Samuel Vernon of Philadelphia County was a yeoman and acquired a servant on 14 Jul 1746.
4. An item of 23 Jan 1773 said a contract to Fred. Verner was cancelled.
5. An item of 20 Nov 1772 listed Philip Verner as assigned to John Crush, or something to that effect.
The librarian said that any land records would be at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), which I then visited. It rapidly became obvious that I could spend months in that office researching. Since I had only a couple of hours, I consulted some general listings and looked at a couple of microfilms. What I learned was:
1. If one ever learns of a specific item and can specify the location, one can acquire copies of the document from that office.
2. All of the listings that I found used the spelling Verner. One line of Verners remained in Armagh and apparently became quite wealthy.
3. There was a microfilm, designated as MIC/15A/72, that reportedly lists "Inhabitants of Armagh in 1690", but it was not available for me to view at the time.
4. Another film was a "List of Protestants in Armagh in 1689" as "attainted" by James II. It was four pages of personal names, so it was of no help.
5. An Edward Verner (in parentheses was the comment "or Varner") was reportedly listed as being from Balleyhagan Parish, County Armagh in a document titled "Quaker Marriage Certificates 1690-1700" in film T1062/43/4:9, but I looked at the film and I did not find him listed there. Another listing in film T1062/43/14 implied that he married in 1714 to a Lydia. However, do not assume that Edward was a Quaker. The Presbyterians were persecuted and had to use the churches of others.
6. Film T-497 reportedly lists a John Verner as being from Drumskea, County Down in a census of ca 1659. County Down and the barony of O'Neil Land bordered County Armagh, and Loughgall Parish was only a short distance from County Down.
7. Film T-129 listed a Robert Verner on the 1714 Armagh Rent Rolls as being from Drumduff, and the same name was still there in 1725 and 1734 in reference to a possession in Ballygasey, County Armagh that was formerly in the lease book of Brownlow Est (presumably Estate).
8. There were multiple Verner deeds from 1705-1880 in Deed Book D236 that apparently pertained to the family that stayed in Armagh.
9. Wm. Verner of Loughgall or Shankill Parish, County Armagh was reportedly listed in the Quaker Marriage Certificates with a date of 1705, but I did not find that listing either. Again, as with Edward above, do not assume that William was a Quaker.
10. Men listed in 1750 included David, John, and J.A. Verner.
11. I did not find any listings of Verners in Omagh or County Tyrone.
In 2006 my cousin and author Janice Palmer (now McLellan) kindly gave me some of her research notes. In them was information that she had obtained from the Armagh County Museum in the city of Armagh, apparently by using a researcher named Bonney Herndon. There were twelve pages of typewritten transcripts, abstracts, and listings, and some of the typing is illegible. Be aware that few of the original documents are available to most researchers. Most of the older records are reportedly at Belfast, but, at some time in the past, the original documents were transcribed or abstracted, and those are available to the general public in various publications. Bonney Herndon apparently had access to publications that contained transcriptions and/or abstracts of the original records. Thus, much of the information from the notes is basically her transcription of other transcriptions and/or abstracts, which increases the possibility of errors. In the original documents, the names of people and places were undoubtedly spelled phonetically by clerks, and names have changed over the centuries, so there are a lot of variations. Many of those places might no longer exist. Thus, there is a possibility of misinterpretations and misspellings, and I had to guess at some of the wording.
I have organized the data in a chronological timeline in an attempt to track people, and I included some additional information. I added some punctuation in some cases for clarity, I substituted words for some of the abbreviations that were obvious, and I tried to indicate the more-correct or more-modern spellings of some place names. Most of the comments in parentheses are mine, unless indicated otherwise. For the benefit of other researchers, I have included all information, some of which is for years long after our family immigrated. The information is from the notes from the Armagh County Museum, unless specified otherwise. Do not confuse the ownership of land with the ownership of leases of the land. Remember that Northern Ireland is a relatively small place; that ownership often changed because of wars, politics, etc.; that tenant farmers often had to migrate because of wars, politics, increased rents, worn-out land, etc.; and that many men acquired multiple properties and multiple leases, often in several counties.