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One Morton Couple
in Kilcommon Parish
1740		 Of all  Mortons in Ireland, very few lived south of Dublin in the 18th Century. The Tinahely Church of Ireland registers, for Kilcommon Parish in Wicklow County, indicate the Mortons at that time were descended from one Morton family, perhaps just one couple having children in the 1740's, near the town of Tinahely.
When a group of people live in a place for a long enough, each successive generation becomes less distinct, and more spread out over time. Several effects are at work in blending out the generations. In each family there is a spread of ages among the children, and for each child, a particular time they choose to have their own children. A grandmother may see five years difference in age betwen her own eldest and youngest child, yet have grandchildren whose ages differ more than 20 years. Mix in the changing effects of local economics, education, longevity and disasters over the decades, and one eventually sees births and deaths occuring at a regular rate. Study one family through enough time, the clumps of births that represent generations smooth right out.
Distinct Morton generations This is not the case for the Mortons of Kilcommon Parish, in which the town of Tinahely lies. The registers of baptisms and burials extant today began in 1814 -- only about 15 years before the birth of our Francis Morton Jr. who immigrated to Canada in 1880. When the birth events calculated from these records are shown in chronological order, they are not smooth. Obvious generations exist. They are about 30 years apart, are successively wider, and just about double in size from one generation to the next -- exactly what you would expect if you were observing the generations descending from one couple, very recent in time.
This effect has been noticed in many of the protestant families in this area of Ireland. Regardless of the large population, the number of names is small suggesting few families arrived and then spread out over generations (34). It appears the Mortons arrived in the early 18th Century and began having children in the 1740's.
Below the number of Morton births occuring in the parish are charted for every 5-year span from the earliest calculated birth. The first half of the births are calculated based on the age at death found in the burial records, and the second half from the more reliable records of baptisms, for a length of 150 years. The tall spikes in the 1740's, 1770's and 1820's seem to represent the children born of those in the previous spike.
Mathmatical
model for six
generations		 Mathmatically, similar numbers can be produced. Calculating a series based on the 1740's generation, assuming each male will have, on average, 2.4 children at age 27, plus or minus a  year, produces similar data for the second and fourth generation. If this model were true, generations should also exist for the 1790's, 1850's and 1870's.

See Mathmatical Model
Discrepancies due to famine and emigration Why do the church registers not show these extra generations? I think the effect of the Great Famine is responsible. Had so many Mortons not left the area after the famine, the missing generations should have appeared in further burials and baptisms. Instead, these Morton events were probably recorded elsewhere, as these people moved away from Tinahely.

From 1845 to about 1851, potato blight caused mass starvation and disease. One eighth of the Irish population died, and another eighth emigrated overseas. After the Famine, too, emigration continued until the population had fallen from 8.2 million in 1841, to 4.4 million by 1911.
The effect on the Mortons may not have been as pronounced as in their poorer tennants, but it is startling nonetheless. The available data on burials during the decades before and after the 1840's, show an average age at death of 61 and 73 years respectively. During the 1840's, the average age at death for Mortons was about 35. Of course, many Mortons left the area after the Famine, including our own ancestors, so if their burials had taken place in Kilcommon Parish, I believe their birth data would reveal the third spike, or the 1790's generation. The fifth generation would have fallen on the worst of the Famine times, and by the time the sixth generation arrived, most of their parents had moved the families elsewhere.
Further evidence of the 'one couple' model is born out in a family rememberance of a distant Morton relative writting in the late 19th Century. Sir James Gowan, judge and Canadian Senator, elluded to a single Morton family arriving in Tinahely at about the time the Kilcommon registers indicate:
"...and Francis Morton, of Tinnahely [sic], the son of George Morton, of Queens County, married another daughter of Rev. Henry Hatton. James Morton was the son of Francis, just mentioned, and the father of Francis Morton, of Woodmount, who was the father of Dr. George Morton, of Toronto, and Dr. Edward Morton, of Barrie, as well as of other children."
   -- Sir James Gowan, The Gowan Pedigree (c. 1890), in H.H. Ardagh's Life of Hon. Sir James Robert Gowan. University Press. Toronto. 1911. p 302

There were four generations, writes Gowan, leading from George of Queens Co. (today's Laois Co.) ending with our emigrés in Toronto, Barrie: (1) George's son Francis, of Tinahely; (2) his son James; (3) his son Francis, of Woodmount; (4) and the generation of the brothers Francis, George and Edward. And this agrees with the generation spikes in the birth/death data, combined with ideas gleaned from the mathematical model.
Of course, the generations we see so obviously in the birth/death data may be due to some other factor than the proposed "one couple" model. Perhaps economic pressures allowed families to grow at discrete times. Possibly it was the attendence at the Tinahely Church that caused dips and bows in the baptismal records. One could dispell the guesswork if only knowledge of the true familial links joined these Mortons together. This will be difficult based on their marrying and naming practices, and lack of census data.
Familial links difficult Marriage registration gives the best evidence of who the bride and groom's parents were. Morton men who remained in Kilcommon Parish tended to marry elsewhere, probably at the parish of their bride's families, so their parents names exist in other registers. Mortons also seemed to use the same given names in each generation, making it more difficult to differentiate them. For example, of 25 Morton men born from 1743 to 1877, only seven different given names were used: there are about three of each of Francis, George, Henry, James, John, Thomas and William. In the same number of Morton women, 11 different names were used, although some of these women married into the Mortons, while some married out and are missing.
Census data for almost all of Ireland for years 1821, 1831, 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891 were destroyed either by decree or in the fire at the Public Records Office in 1922. Without the information they held, it is much more difficult to ascertain which parents belong to which children found in the limited church registries.
So, without further study made, it seems that one or two couples arrived in Kilcommon Parish, Tinahely, and around the 1740's began their first generation. Our Francis Morton, who latterly settled in Holland Landing, would have been a member of the fourth generation of that couple.

In their time in Tinahely, the Mortons would have participated in the 'class' society where landowning Protestants were favoured, putting down insurrections and civil disobediance, sufferring through famine, and eventually the mass emigration to the New Worlds.
Examine  the first three Morton generations inTinahely.