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Messages - DJMPotts

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Caithness / Re: Alexander Corbett Miller of Wick
« on: Monday 06 January 20 17:37 GMT (UK)  »
Thank you very much, Sandra. I have shared what I have learned so far with my sibs and cousins and everybody is pretty amazed at our 'lost' family (or maybe they weren't lost, we were!)  :) 

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Caithness / Re: Alexander Corbett Miller of Wick
« on: Monday 06 January 20 12:34 GMT (UK)  »
Thank you, Sandra. This is amazing. All these great and great-great aunts and uncles,and cousins, many sharing the same first names as my known family. I notice when Alexander Corbett Miller Jr. got married, it was in a Catholic church, and my family are all Presbyterian, wonder if that caused the Miller mini-schism? Again, your work is much appreciated. I can't wait to share it with my family members who also love genealogy. The family is huge. The Alex Corbet Miller who was born in 1856 in Wick had 8 children, one of them, my grandfather William Thomas Millar, had 11 children, one of which was my father, so I grew up with a hoard of cousins. Also, interestingly, my dad's brothers all had daughters so my two brothers were the only men to 'carry on the Millar name', and they had daughters, too! But it turns out, with Alex's half-brother Dan, the male line actually continued (although the spelling is now Miller.) That little 'e' to 'a' change in the name spelling caused me and my cousins a lot of grief growing up - all sorts of weird pronunciations, not to mention screwed up job applications, pay checks, email addresses and so forth. Many thanks for the information!

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Caithness / Re: Alexander Corbett Miller of Wick
« on: Monday 06 January 20 02:38 GMT (UK)  »
This is wonderful information, thank you so much. All my family knew about Daniel/Donald was that he existed and had come to the U.S. Interesting that there was an entire group of cousins that they had never heard of, living in the same town. The eldest grandchild of Alex, my aunt, died in 2013 at age 97, born in 1916 so she should have heard about Alex and Francis visiting and returning from Scotland, and Daniel immigrating in 1905 (which would have been big news), but I interviewed her repeatedly, and reviewed family Bibles, etc. to get names and dates, and neither she nor her younger siblings knew anything about 'Uncle Dan.' I can't thank you enough for connecting me to this 'arm' of the family tree.

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Caithness / Re: Alexander Corbett Miller of Wick
« on: Sunday 05 January 20 23:04 GMT (UK)  »
Interesting, my daddy was named Donald and nobody knew where that came from but it is such a common Scottish name. I have an 88 year old Uncle (Corbet Alexander Millar) who remembers an Uncle Dan Miller but can't tell me much about him except he was a small man (the Millar men are all big burly redheads). Wonder what happened to Euphemia if Dan/Donald came to the US around 1900? Dan would have been in his late 20's then, and Alex in his early 40's. My Uncle says Alex had been in the Scottish Army, went AWOL, hired onto a cattle ship to Amsterdam, joined the British Navy there and went AWOL in the US in New Orleans, and maybe changed his last name spelling to Millar from Miller to avoid being detected. Alex did not communicate with his family in Scotland, again from fear of being found by the authorities, but became a US citizen so he could go back to Scotland to visit, where he found the half brother Dan in Wick. Thank you very much for giving me that information about Dan/Donald and Euphemia.

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Caithness / Re: Alexander Corbett Miller of Wick
« on: Sunday 05 January 20 21:41 GMT (UK)  »
Don't know step mothers name but he had a half brother named Dan, his father and step-mother's son, who Alex brought back to Alabama. Since Alex had jumped ship (merchant marine or British navy, the story changes) in New Orleans, he had to sneak out of the US, then come back in legally, 40 years after he originally immigrated, and he brought Dan with him. Dan was a tailor and also lived in the Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama, USA area.

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Caithness / Re: Alexander Corbett Miller of Wick
« on: Sunday 05 January 20 18:14 GMT (UK)  »
Thank you so much for the replies! Sorry I did not include in my original post that Alex returned to the US after visiting Wick as an adult, and died in Birmingham AL USA (Homewood Jefferson County) Jan 3 1917 and is buried in the Miller family cemetery (we now spell our name Millar, I think my Grampa changed it in a pique after an argument with his dad, Alex.) I do think that is Alex in the 1861 and 1871 census references you cite. Your help is very much appreciated!

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Caithness / Alexander Corbett Miller of Wick
« on: Saturday 04 January 20 20:59 GMT (UK)  »
Visiting Scotland this summer and would like to find family. My great grandfather Alexander Corbett (Corbet, Corbitt) Miller was born in Caithness June 14, 1856. His father was James Miller and his mother was Barbara Corbet Miller. He immigrated to the US as a young teenager, became a dairy man, married Frances Lucinda Sellers May 18, 1881 in Birmingham, Alabama. They had at least 8 children, one was my paternal grandfather. The family lore was that Alex's mother died when he was a child and his father remarried and his stepmother and he did not get along so he became what we would call a merchant marine and sailed to America, jumped ship in New Orleans and worked his way up into northern Alabama. He did go home to Wick at some point to meet a younger half-brother, and it is archives or records of him and those relatives I would love to find.

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