The earliest male Verner in Irish records was a John Verner who was apparently married to a woman named Prudace. Their relationship to other Verners is not known. A John Verner held property in County Down in 1659, a John Verner held property in County Antrim in 1669, and a John Verner left a will in 1684 that was recorded in the town of Armagh. The John who died in 1684 had sons named Robert, Edward, and Mathias when he died, but a man named Henry Verner who died in 1683 was probably his son or brother. He was probably the John Verner of earlier records, but that is not proven.
A Henry Verner died in 1683 in County Antrim with a wife named Isabella and sons named Benjamin, Samuel, and David. Peerage books say that Henry's father settled in County Armagh about 1650, and Henry is believed to have been the forebear of the later titled line of Ireland. That suggests that the John and Prudace Verner who held lands ca 1650 might have been Henry's parents, but that is not proven. The John Verner/Varner who died in 1684 might have been Henry's father or brother. Henry held many lands or leases that he bequeathed to his sons, but wars in the late-1680s might have caused them to lose those lands. I believe that Henry's son Samuel was the man who acquired leases in County Armagh in 1691/2, sold them in 1722, immigrated to America, and had a proven son named David. David was presumably named for his father's brother or another close relative.
The older immigrant Samuel's son David is believed to have been the father of John Verner, Sr., born ca 1725. There were men in early Pennsylvania named Robert, James, Samuel, and John who might have been other sons or close relatives of Samuel. The crossed-out name Jacob in the 1725 grant application suggests another possible son of Samuel. David was probably not Samuel's eldest son, so he would have traditionally named his eldest son after a brother or a grandparent, rather than after his father. The John Verner/Varner who died in 1684 might have been David's great-grandfather. The elder John Verner in Pennsylvania records might have been David's half-brother. A Samuel Verner married ca 1698 and subsequently had a son named John. The identity of that Samuel is not known. He could have been the son of the 1683 will and thus the older immigrant, but it is also possible that he was a son of the older immigrant Samuel and might have been the younger Samuel Verner of Pennsylvania records.
The older immigrant Samuel Verner/Varner acquired his land in County Armagh at a time when relative peace had returned to Ulster and at a time when many more Scots were migrating there. Thus, it is possible that Samuel had recently arrived in County Armagh when he acquired his land lease in 1691/2, but it is more likely that he was a descendant of the families who were already in Ulster. If he was the son of the older Henry Verner, as it appears, he probably lost his inherited County Antrim land when the Irish Catholics regained power in the late-1680s, and he probably decided to acquire land near the other Verners in County Armagh when peace was restored in 1691.
Samuel immigrated to America by 1724 during a time when the vast majority of immigrants from Ulster were Presbyterian Scotch-Irish, and he settled in an area of Pennsylvania that was settled predominantly by Scotch-Irish. If Samuel had considered himself of English descent, it seems to me that he would have gone elsewhere, e.g. Virginia, rather than to Pennsylvania. He was obviously a Protestant. If he had been a Quaker, it seems to me that he would have settled in a Quaker community elsewhere in Pennsylvania. It appears to me that most of the circumstantial evidence suggests that Samuel was Scotch-Irish, that he was probably Presbyterian, that one of the men in the Ulster records of the mid-1600s was probably his grandfather, and that the most likely candidate for his father was the Henry Verner who died in 1683 with sons named Benjamin, Samuel, and David.
It appears to me that Samuel's forebears probably came from the lowlands of Scotland near Edinburgh, rather than directly from England, but neither is proven. The history of the Scots families suggests that his family probably originally came from Normandy in ancient times, although a German origin can not be ruled out. The sequence of name variations suggests a migration from France to England to Scotland to Ulster to America. Family lore reportedly said that John Verner, Sr., born ca 1725, was a Presbyterian of Scotch-Irish descent, although some of that lore appears to have been confused with his wife's Pettigrew history. In Chapter Two, I will discuss that his son David died in Lancaster County, PA in 1743, probably with minor children. By that time, it was becoming more difficult for the Scotch-Irish to acquire land in Pennsylvania, so some of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians had obtained permission to settle in Virginia. David's believed-son John acquired land in 1749 or 1750 in or near that Scotch-Irish Virginia settlement and married a girl of Scotch-Irish descent. Thus, circumstantial evidence suggests that John was a grandson of Samuel, via Samuel's son David. John will be the subject of Chapter Three.