Allan McDonald, born 1836-37

[Neale1961]

From the way the parents’ names are recorded on the marriage record, I get the impression that Allan’s mother was Mary, maiden name McDonald. Father was Donald (surname McDonald assumed).
Look how the bride’s parents are recorded. Her mother is Mary, maiden name Dunne. Father was Thomas (surname Foster assumed)
Would be interested to hear what others think.

[Eric Hatfield]

Hi Forfarian,

So the only Argyllshire parish that you need to consider as a possible birthplace of your Donald is Ardnamurchan.

Thanks so much for going to the trouble of detailing all that. It's complicated. No wonder I didn't understand it properly. That conclusion is helpful thanks.

Scotland's People, Ancestry, FamilySearch etc: which to use?

Thanks for that link too. I am not a very experienced family history researcher, but I have researched quite a lot in Australia, England and Aberdeenshire and a little in Ireland, and I have found Scotland definitely the best of them all. Scotland's People is a good website, and its online documents relatively inexpensive. In Australia, we have little census information (the regular 5 yearly census info is destroyed for privacy reasons after it is compiled) and online documents cost $20+. So I have to be very careful in choosing what documents to purchase or it can get pretty expensive.

But I try to be careful too in Scotland. I find Ancestry, Find My Past and Family Search sometimes allow better specification of the search, and the identification of which is the correct one of several possible people, and then I can purchase the correct document, rather than purchasing several to see which one I want.

[Eric Hatfield]

I get the impression that Allan’s mother was Mary, maiden name McDonald.

I'd not thought about it like that. I had assumed that the priest (if that was who wrote down the information) had been inexact in what he wrote, but your suggestion of consistency may be right. Certainly I have come across other marriages where both partners were surnamed McDonald. Thanks for the thought.

[Forfarian]

There are just four recorded baptisms of children to Donald Macdonald and Mary Macdonald maiden surname Macdonald in Inverness-shire in the indexes at Scotland's People.

Ann, 27 June 1824, Fort William, RC
Alexander, 5 July 1826, Fort William, RC
Anne, 18 June 18 June 1827, Kilmuir (Skye), C of S
Donald, 21 July 1828, Fort William, RC

There may of course be others whose records have not survived.

The three RC ones are the children of Donald Macdonald, vintner, Fort William.

Among the numerous marriages of Donald M*cdonalds to Mary M*cdonalds there are three in Inverness-shire between 1820 and 1837: one each in North Uist in 1823, Inverness in 1824, and Kilmonivaig in 1825. However Allan's parents' marriage record may not have survived, or they may have married in a different county.

I cannot find - or at least have not yet found - any of them in the 1841 census.

Have you looked for deaths of Donald the miner or his wife Mary in Australia?

[Eric Hatfield]

Thanks for doing that investigation. A few thoughts ....

1. I have been searching for Allan's mother to be Mar* to cover Mary, Mairead and Margaret. So you have found some I haven't come across yet, but I have a few others. For example:

1851 Census. Donald & Mary and several children (but not Alan) at Urquhart. There are several Urquharts, but the one near the castle isn't far from Eskadale where Neale1961 found an Allan being baptised. Though this couple in 1851 may be a little too young.

There are several others in the 1851 census. In 1841, the only ones I have found were Donald and Margaret at Snizort on Skye and Donald and Mary at Snizort and also on North Uist. But none of them had an Allan with them.

But the trouble with all this, like I said at the start, are the doubts about what form of her name was used, the large number of McDonalds, and the fact that I haven't found any Donald, Mar* and Allan in birth/baptism and the 1841 and 1851 censuses. Now they could have moved around, records may have been lost as you say, Allan may have been staying elsewhere on Census day, and some or all may have emigrated by 1851, but it still means that I have no real confidence I have found the right family.

2. Yes I have looked for them both in death records in Australia, but there are just too many McDonalds to choose from without knowing more about them.

3. Neither can I find them in emigration. There are many Donalds, but generally with different family. One Donald and Mary have a son Allan but he is a decade at least too young. Of course Mary/Margaret may have died and he travelled alone, but that makes him impossible to identify for sure.

I will keep looking, but I may have to settle for knowing that my grandmother (whose parents I had little idea about 2 weeks ago) is 3/4 Irish and 1/4 Scottish from Inverness-shire, which is a big step forwards.

Thanks again.

[Forfarian]

I think you can forget about searching for Mairead. This is because there is no listing of this name in the records at Scotland's People before the 1911 census.

And for his mother's name to be Margaret he would have had to misread the name on his marriage certificate.

It would, however, be worth remembering that the Gaelic version of Mary is Màiri, as there are records of Màiri as early as 1858.

(Not Mhairi, which is the vocative case of Màiri and therefore means 'hey, you, Mary!' not just 'Mary'. Fortunately for your research the earliest appearance of 'Mhairi' in the records at SP is in the 1891 census.)

[Eric Hatfield]

This is all really helpful for me, thanks. There is so much I don't know, and Gaelic names and Scottish usage in the 19th century are certainly part of my ignorance!

I think you are right that it is most likely that his parents' names were written on that document before he signed it, so we can assume he was OK with "Mary". But just in the last 2 weeks I have found many cases that show fluidity in names:

• Allan's wife was christened Hanora, but after that called Annie or Annie Alice (though they were irish rather than Scottish).
• Their daughter was christened Agnes but is variously shown in documentation as Agnes Jane, Agnes Jean and I think somewhere the Jane or Jean was the first name.
• Another of their daughters was christened Maggie but generally known as Margaret. I would generally expect that to go the other way.

I don't suppose there are as large a name change as the one we are discussion, and I certainly appreciate what you say here. So I want to be open to other possibilities while also accepting the advice of those who know more than I do. Thanks again.

[Neale1961]

Hi Eric, I know you say you have not found immigration records, but I am uncertain how far afield you have looked. I would not restrict your search to Victoria.
I know of numerous examples of people /families who had emigrated to and lived in other states (NSW, SA, TAS but also Qld) who relocated to Victoria during the 1850s for the gold.

[Forfarian]

Another of their daughters was christened Maggie but generally known as Margaret. I would generally expect that to go the other way.

It's not all that unusual.

Scotland's People has over half a million records containing Maggie. That's about a tenth of the number of Margarets.

I had a great-aunt who never forgave her father for registering her birth as Maggie instead of Margaret. She was generally known as Meg.