Hi Ken
Not sure about the
"From family tradition we understand that they (douglas's) lived along the rugged western coast of Scotland in the area of Argyllshire" but everything else is backed up by entries to be found on the Old Parish Registers for William and Helen's life post their marriage whilst still in Scotland.
This is a great map for counties in Scotland
www.scotlandsfamily.com/county-map.htm and for parishes within counties
www.scotlandsfamily.com/parish-maps.htmIf I can give you some advice from experience in research in this time period pre 1841 and the first census. You are fortunate that the marriage and children's births show on the OPRs. If you haven't viewed the images of the births/christenings on
www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk, you might want to consider this. For christenings, sponsors names can often help to tie in family members. You are looking really for all possible clues from any source. Don't know what the style of the marriage register for Tongue was at the time of William and Helen's marriage, but also worth checking to see what it actually says (image for this should also be available on SP).
Bear in mind when searching for records for Helen that the name has numerous variants at that time. Thinking of that 1803 birth and christening for an Eleanor Paterson, daughter of Anthony and Jane, this site gives you an idea on variants
www.whatsinaname.net/php/search.php?action=search2&search_name=eleanorGoogling around, can't see very much around for Thomas Douglas and Oliver Young. There is though some info for Anthony Paterson (note that in Scotland, the common spelling of Paterson is with a single T) and wife Jane. I believe, from what I have seen, her maiden names was GRECIAN/GRECHIAN). I don't know whether you have a subs. to Ancestry, but there are numerous family trees for this line, confirming very much what we have seen so far and the family's move from Northumberland to Scotland. Various trees have possible siblings to Nelly, with marriages in Tongue and various other places in the area. Also, a number of the brothers seem to have headed off to Australia and NZ.
I also found this old post here on RC regarding possible entries for the family of Anthony Paterson and Jane Grecian
www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=6bau0k50o6k46lr9vnrngoqku5&topic=45412.300 Very long post! This link starts from post 300, which is the relevant one including the ones that follow.
I also found this comment interesting, re-inforcing Falkryn's earlier comment, from post 304 on the page:
You probably already know this but just in case you don't, the reason that so many families "emigrated" from the Scottish Borders and the County of Northumberland to the County of Sutherland was because the men were shepherds. They were in demand because of their experience with the "big" sheep, which were introduced as one of the Sutherlands' "improvements".Monica