Beeks line: Hugh Donaghe, dates unclear, Immigrant

Hugh Dunaghe or Donaho is the last Beeks ancestor I have on the family tree.  I hope I can find more ancestors  to write about, and I hope I can find more about this man than I have right now.  The information I have is sketchy, but interesting. 

As you might guess, Hugh's last name, Donaghe, or Donaho, seems to indicate an Irish origin.  The sketchy and undocumented information that I have says that Hugh was born about 1680, In Kilkeel, County Down, Ireland . Kilkeel is a small town on the east coast of Northern Ireland, and their principal industry is fishing.  I'm not sure whether that fits with what is known about our Hugh, but of course there would have been other occupations, too, for someone had to feed and clothe the fishermen of the time. 

He is believed to have married someone named Elizabeth about 1700, possibly in Chester County, Pennsylvania, about 1700, shortly before his father John died in 1705.  The location for John's death is given as Virginia, but again, that seems very sketchy.  The only child of Hugh and Elizabeth that I can locate is Dianna, who married Thomas Hicklin in about 1723.  So Dianna would have been born about the turn of the 18th century. 

I suspect that Hugh and Elizabeth had at least one other child, a son named Hugh.  There are records in Augusta County, Virginia referring to a Hugh Donague, and that Hugh died in 1773.  I suspect that this record is not for our Hugh, and I suspect that military records for Thomas and Charles Donaho, as early as the 1740s in Virginia, may also belong to sons or other relatives of this man. 

Land records as late as 1774 mention Hugh.  If this is our Hugh, he had land, 277 acres on "the south side of the North RIver of Shando".  It's possible that the deed wasn't filed until after Hugh's death, because up to that point there had been no need to file a deed.  There is also a record of Hugh witnessing a land deed several years after our Hugh's death, so it seems that whether or not they were father and son, they were surely two different people.  Perhaps our Hugh never made it to the Shenandoah Valley.

That is as much information or speculation as I have for Hugh.  It  certainly isn't much to go on but because the Beeks family doesn't have much known Irish ancestry, I thought it was worthwhile to at least mention the man.  Perhaps there are more records waiting to be found, and if we are lucky enough to find them, I'll post them at a later date. 

The line of descent is

Hugh Donaghe-Elizabeth
Dianna Donaghe-Thomas Hicklin
Dinah or Delilah Hicklin- James Bodkin
George Bodkin-Elizabeth "Fannie" Featheringill
Charity Botkin-Jackson Wise
Mary Wise-William Beeks
John Beeks-Elizabeth Wise
Wilbur Beeks-Cleo Aldridge
Mary Margaret Beeks-Cleveland Harshbarger
Their descendants