The purpose of this message is to place on public record a correction of a gross error in a number of family trees published online. I hope that it will be picked up by anyone searching for this family in future.
According to these trees, Sir James Young Simpson's great-niece Mary Beatrice Simpson was the mother, at the age of 14, of an illegitimate child named William MacDonald Simpson, born in Dingwall on 5 January 1888.
This is, quite simply, completely untrue.
The Mary Simpson who bore William McDonald Simpson in Dingwall on 5 January 1888 was an entirely different Mary Simpson. I have researched her exhaustively using a variety of sources including the Dingwall parochial board records and the records of Craig Dunain Hospital in Inverness.
This Mary Simpson was the daughter of William Simpson, carpenter, and Ann Mackenzie, and she was born in Ledvarget, Dingwall on 25 April 1863. I have William McDonald Simpson's birth certificate, describing his mother as 'carpenter's daughter' and giving his place of birth as Ledvarget. (Mary Beatrice's father John Simpson was a chemist.) I have the 1881, 1891, 1901 and 1911 census records showing that Mary lived all her life at Ledvarget, Dingwall, and the death certificate showing that Mary died unmarried in Inverness on 6 July 1926.
The claim that it was Mary Beatrice Simpson who was the mother of William MacDonald Simpson is an entirely unwarranted aspersion on Mary Beatrice.
The error seems to have originated in the 'Simpson-Beck' online family tree, and it is repeated in several other online trees, including that of Bonnie Hickox who cites Simpson-Beck as her source. I have attempted to contact the authors of both trees without success.