Searching for my 3rd Great Grandfather Donald McDonald B. 1760 InvernessShire

[Patrick McDonald]

I've hit the wall on searching for Donald. He may have been born near Glenmorriston or North Mist in Inverness - Shire. Born on the first day of 1760 and emigrated to Glengarry County, Ontario, Canada about 1783. He settled in Lancaster and farmed Concession 5/Lot 31, living there untill his death in 1859 at 99 years of age.
Any help will be very much appreciated.
 

[goldie61]

Hi Patrick and welcome to Rootschat!

Where have you already searched?

I presume you know that all Scottish records are on ScotlandsPeople, and have already searched there?
https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/


Information that may help in finding him:
Names of any brothers and sisters he may have had.
Did he marry in Scotland or in Canada? Have you found his marriage? Does it give any further information?
Names of his children. (If he followed the Scottish naming patterns, these may give a clue to his parents' names).

There is also a site called Scotlandsplaces
https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/
which is a searchable  collection of historical databases over a wide range of dates.

[Forfarian]

I've hit the wall on searching for Donald. He may have been born near Glenmorriston or North Mist in Inverness - Shire.

I think that's probably a misreading of North Uist - there is no place called Mist in Scotland to the best of my knowledge and belief.

North Uist is part of the Outer Hebrides, now officially called Na h-Eileanan an Iar or The Western Isles. For historical descriptions of North Uist see https://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/parish/Inverness/North%20Uist

Glenmoriston is part of the united parish of Urquhart and Glenmoriston, which is on the north-western shore of Loch Ness. Historical accounts are at https://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/parish/Inverness/Urquhart and https://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/viewer/nsa-vol14-Parish_record_for_Urquhart_and_Glen_in_the_county_of_Inverness_in_volume_14_of_account_2/

It would be quite hard to find two parishes in one county but quite so far apart and so different in topography!

There are only two surviving records of baptisms of Donald M(a)cDonalds in Inverness-shire in 1760 - one in Croy and Dalcross on 26 October 1760, and one on 6 January 1760 in Kilmorack. Kilmorack is the next parish north of Urquhart and Glenmoriston. So he could possibly be a candidate for your Donald M(a)cDonald.

But you cannot assume that the most likely-looking candidate has to be the right one, because the surviving records are very incomplete. Specifically, there are no surviving records of baptisms in Urquhart and Glenmoriston before 1785, or in North Uist before 1821.

[GR2]

It's not unusual for a number of people from the same area to emigrate together, or to settle near previous emigrants from the area. It might be worth checking where other settlers came from, if someone else has researched that.

[Rosinish]

Donald. He may have been born near Glenmorriston or North Mist in Inverness - Shire. Born on the first day of 1760 and emigrated to Glengarry County, Ontario, Canada about 1783.
Any help will be very much appreciated.

I agree with Forfarian, 'Mist' is very likely Uist.

There are no online church records for the area until early 1800s & even then they're sparse.

What do you know about Donald when he arrived...

Single/married (name of wife), occ, denomination, names of children/dates in order & anything else known?

Annie

[Forfarian]

Might it be worth contacting the Seallam centre https://www.visitouterhebrides.co.uk/see-and-do/seallam-visitor-centre-p527091? They have an extensive genealogical collection about the Western Isles.

But of course that is useless if Donald was actually from Loch Ness.

[Patrick McDonald]

Thanks to everyone that replied, very much appreciated.
 I found information on Ancestry of his arrival on the ship McDonald arriving 1886-1887 in Canada. I don't know if he was married at that time. My ancestors were known as the "Taylor" McDonalds and that agrees with the ships roster. He is shown on the roster to be from Knoydart.
Donald married Harriet Abbot, also born in Scotland. They had five children all born in Canada.
My primary objective is to find information on his birth and his parents. I have his parents as "Donald Duncan McDonald" born abt 1732 and "Mary McPhie" born abt 1735.
I have looked on Scotlands People and the information is very limited pre 1800.
   

[Patrick McDonald]

The ship McDonald landed 1786-1787 sorry for my mistake. Missed that on my proof read.

[Forfarian]

I have looked on Scotlands People and the information is very limited pre 1800. 

That's because of the low survival rate of records from before 1800, especially in the remoter parts of the mainland and the islands.

You can see exactly what records from which parishes have survived at https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/old-parish-registers/list-of-old-parish-registers. Knoydart is in the parish of Glenelg, where the earliest surviving record is a baptism in 1792.