The most frequent family names with roots in County Tyrone — names that spread through Ireland and the Irish diaspora:
Tyrone — from Tír Eoghain, 'Land of Owen' — is O'Neill country. The O'Neills were the most powerful Gaelic dynasty in Ulster, and their seat at Tullyhogue Fort (a few miles south of Cookstown) was the inauguration site of the O'Neill kings for centuries. Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, led the Nine Years' War against Elizabeth I — the last great Gaelic resistance — and very nearly won.
The county has produced an extraordinary number of American presidents' ancestors. Andrew Jackson's parents were from County Antrim, but Tyrone supplied the families of James K. Polk, Chester Arthur, and Woodrow Wilson (whose grandfather was from Strabane). Tyrone is one of the most significant counties in the Ulster-Scots presidential lineage.
The Ulster-American Folk Park near Omagh — which straddles a historic emigrant homestead — tells the story of emigration from Ulster to America through full-scale reconstructed buildings and ship models. It is one of the best emigration heritage sites in Ireland.
Tyrone emigrants went disproportionately to North America, particularly to Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, and Appalachia. The Scots-Irish identity of the county — Presbyterian farmers and labourers who crossed the Atlantic in the eighteenth century — made Tyrone one of the most influential counties in the formation of the American frontier character.
Love Ireland covers the Ulster-American Folk Park, Tullyhogue Fort, the Sperrins Mountains, and the Tyrone ancestral connections to the US presidency. The county is central to understanding how Ulster shaped America.
Subscribe to Love Ireland — FreeIf your family came from County Tyrone, here's where to start your research:
Common County Tyrone surnames with dedicated pages on this site: