RootsChat.Com

And Feasgar math to you too.
How exciting. Thank you so much for getting in touch.
To be honest, I have never heard of Culmiln but now intend to investigate.

I'm afraid I never did find out where my Donald Fraser was from, but Kiltarlity is a strong possibility.

 I believe, but cannot yet prove, that one of his cousins lived there, an Alexander Fraser, married to Catherine Chisholm (sister of Donald Chisholm, with whom Donald Fraser had business dealings in Arisaig). Alexander and Catherine had a son called Thomas, who would therefore have been Donald Fraser's nephew and who in turn was in business with Donald Chisholm's son, and his cousin, Alexander Chisholm.
Alexander Fraser had been a tenant farmer in Phoenas (found in various spellings) in Kiltarlity parish and died before 1786.

Sorry, that's probably all a bit confused.

If you have any family trees of the Culmiln branch, I would be extremely interested in seeing them. I have been working for years to find out where Donald came from originally. I have the names of three of his male cousins from a petition of 1768, Alexander, Angus and James, who were all alive in 1768.

Just as a word of warning, there were later Fraser incomers to North Uist, including a teacher and his family.

I have also done a DNA test with Ancestry but it threw up no obvious Fraser connections who could help me. It would be interesting however to compare your Uist DNA connections with mine, to see if any of them match.

I do know that a son of one of my uncles moved to South Uist and has a family there, and further afield, some of whom came up in the Ancestry DNA matches.

Also, I did self-publish a slim volume on my research, a copy of which I sent to Taigh Chearsabhagh in Lochmaddy, entitled A Man in my Head. You might be able to read it there.

So many questions! I look forward to further exchanges.

Oidhche math,
Christine

Hi, how lovely to make contact, even after all this time.
If you have a Fraser ancestor from Berbice, I can tell you that there were lots of Frasers involved out in Guyana.
The Frasers of Gortleg (an area on the south banks of Loch Ness) had Berbice connections. James Fraser, Writer to the Signet (a sort of lawyer in those days) was the guardian of my Donald Fraser's three late children, and I suspect (but cannot prove) he was a cousin to my Donald Fraser.
Anyway, James Fraser 1729 - 1805 had a brother, Simon, (I think) who went out to Guyana to make money. That's just one example. There were two other Fraser branches involved out there: the Frasers of Belladrum, and the Frasers of Reelig. Both of those branches were also from the Loch Ness area. There were several other Fraser families who were out in that area of the world and may have passed through Guyana.
You might be connected to any of those. You might want to look for a book called Slaves and Highlanders by David Alston. It has a lot about Frasers in Berbice.

The name Fraser is not a Lewis name any more than it was a North Uist name. It is definitely from the Inverness / Loch Ness area. Any Frasers in Lewis in the 18th century would have stood out like a sore thumb and were probably brought there by McLeod to be tacksmen.

As for the Baleshare connection, Marion Macdonald married Ranald Macdonald of Baleshare (previously of Skye - he was the First of Baleshare, which is off North Uist). Ranald had at least five children, three boys, Hugh, (who succeeded him in Baleshare), Ranald (who doesn't appear to have any children) and Donald Roy and at least two girls, all born before 1742, when Ranald died. Donald Roy had a chequered history during the Jacobite uprisings and appears to have emigrated to North America. Marion's marriage to Baleshare was her second but in her first marriage she only had girls. By the time she married my Donald, she was at least over 40 and more probably around 60, and there is no record of her having any children by him.

If any of this makes any sense to you, do get back in touch and we can see if I can help any further.

Hi there,
I've had a search but discovered I was never in contact directly with her.
Have you tried posting on here:

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=208869

and seeing if she replies?

This is so frustrating. Tried to post a reply earlier but it vanished! Grrr.

Anyway, thanks for getting in touch, Andrew, but I'm not sure I'm the person you mean.
My Thomsons were mostly weavers from Kirkintilloch before some of them moved to Greenock. They're on my grandmother's side, through her father, Alexander, born 1854, his father Robert, born 1821, and his father Alexander, born around 1780/1790. There's only one Archibald I can see, my grandmother's youngest brother born in 1898 and only a couple of earlier siblings called James, born in 1810 and in 1855. None of these seem to fit the ones you mention. I'll try and attach my file on my Thomsons for you to see if it's the same family.