MacDonald or Gillis from Isle of Lewis - circa 1804

[Nathan]

One problem I've found in my own research is that when what-is-now-Canada was just a colony of the British Empire, people from the old country didn't need to be naturalized as immigrants, so there is less documentation in that regard. My latest angle is to try to find grants of land by the Crown, which can contain information about the emigrant's place of origin. This works for my family because they were farmers and settled in an area that was on the frontier of the colony, in the Upper Ottawa Valley.

Finding this information has meant taking a lead from Ancestry.ca to an old index of land grants that is on microfiche at the library. Once I sorted out the citation, it points to Letters Patent that are held in the Quebec Archives. I've now sent a request to them for copies and am very thankful that I speak French because their order form is not available in English

Maybe something like that could work, if your family was granted Crown land?

Another way of going about it might be to look for a passenger list from the boat they arrived on? It helps that you know when they arrived and where.

Thanks for the helpful suggestions. I can't find any boats that arrived in Pictou from the Highlands in 1804. Of course there must have been ships, but the records are not all online. We haven't been able to tie Malcolm (perhaps Calum) to a particular land grant but Angus inherited Roderick MacDougall's land grant after he married his daughter.

My Canadian records are pretty up to date from Angus forward. What I'm looking for is probably:

a) A record of birth or christening for Angus.
b) A record of the marriage of Malcolm McDonald and Margaret Gillis in the Hebrides (prob Lewis, not sure which parish).
c) A written record of the existence of a Reverend Gillis with a daughter Margaret on Lewis at that time. He may have officiated over several weddings and funerals etc.. so if he lived, there should be some paper trail.

One issue is Margaret's name could be recorded as Maidread, Morag, Peggy... who knows...

[CMcG]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions. I can't find any boats that arrived in Pictou from the Highlands in 1804. Of course there must have been ships, but the records are not all online. We haven't been able to tie Malcolm (perhaps Calum) to a particular land grant but Angus inherited Roderick MacDougall's land grant after he married his daughter.

My Canadian records are pretty up to date from Angus forward. What I'm looking for is probably:

a) A record of birth or christening for Angus.
b) A record of the marriage of Malcolm McDonald and Margaret Gillis in the Hebrides (prob Lewis, not sure which parish).
c) A written record of the existence of a Reverend Gillis with a daughter Margaret on Lewis at that time. He may have officiated over several weddings and funerals etc.. so if he lived, there should be some paper trail.

One issue is Margaret's name could be recorded as Maidread, Morag, Peggy... who knows...

Ya, alternate spellings make it tough, eh? The problem with trying to jump over the pond is the need to narrow it down to something smaller than "the Hebrides (prob Lewis)" or you'll be searching for records like a needle in a haystack. This is especially true when it comes to records that aren't online...

Ancestry.ca shows some ship listings arriving in Nova Scotia from Scotland that might match your family. Not for 1804, but record keeping was a bit "loose" back in those days. For example, I have three different birth years for my 3 X great grandfather The brief ancestry.ca references come from:

Whyte, Donald. 1986. A Dictionary of Scottish Emigrants to Canada before Confederation. Toronto: Ontario Genealogical Society.

It's supposed to contain "Date and port of arrival. Name of ship, place of origin, place of destination, date of birth and death, parentage, occupation, and other historical and family data may also be provided."

If you're ready to dig for records in the Hebrides, check out GENUKI: Scotland for a bunch of resources and links: http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/

[creagdhubh]

Ya, alternate spellings make it tough, eh? The problem with trying to jump over the pond is the need to narrow it down to something smaller than "the Hebrides (prob Lewis)" or you'll be searching for records like a needle in a haystack. This is especially true when it comes to records that aren't online...

Ancestry.ca shows some ship listings arriving in Nova Scotia from Scotland that might match your family. Not for 1804, but record keeping was a bit "loose" back in those days. For example, I have three different birth years for my 3 X great grandfather The brief ancestry.ca references come from Whyte, Donald. 1986. A Dictionary of Scottish Emigrants to Canada before Confederation. Toronto: Ontario Genealogical Society. It's supposed to contain "Date and port of arrival. Name of ship, place of origin, place of destination, date of birth and death, parentage, occupation, and other historical and family data may also be provided."

If you're ready to dig for records in the Hebrides, check out GENUKI: Scotland for a bunch of resources and links: http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/

Fantastic link, Colin!

Cheers,

[TheOfficialBren]

Fantastic link, Colin!

Cheers,

!
Thank you, Colin. Best of luck, Nathan.

It seems that many times records were simply not kept among country folk. How many generations of people were born, lived, and died without much of a trace in the written record? A fire at the local parish could have destroyed centuries of local records. Spelling changes can be a real bother, and some people flat-out changed their names upon coming to the New World...often because they didn't want to be found by people in the Old World.

[Nathan]

Ya, alternate spellings make it tough, eh? The problem with trying to jump over the pond is the need to narrow it down to something smaller than "the Hebrides (prob Lewis)" or you'll be searching for records like a needle in a haystack. This is especially true when it comes to records that aren't online...

Ancestry.ca shows some ship listings arriving in Nova Scotia from Scotland that might match your family. Not for 1804, but record keeping was a bit "loose" back in those days. For example, I have three different birth years for my 3 X great grandfather The brief ancestry.ca references come from:

Whyte, Donald. 1986. A Dictionary of Scottish Emigrants to Canada before Confederation. Toronto: Ontario Genealogical Society.

It's supposed to contain "Date and port of arrival. Name of ship, place of origin, place of destination, date of birth and death, parentage, occupation, and other historical and family data may also be provided."

If you're ready to dig for records in the Hebrides, check out GENUKI: Scotland for a bunch of resources and links: http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/

I agree that what I have is vague. We know that Angus was a native of Lewis, approx when he was born and when he died. We know he had a brother named John. We know his mother was Margaret Gillis and her father was a minister. We know Angus' father was named Malcolm.

Unfortunately, we don't know for sure whether either of both of his parents (Malcolm MacDonald and Margaret Gillis) were orn on Lewis. When either was born, married or died. The names of their other children that didn't come to Canada, what Malcolm did for a living etc... so yeah. Needle in a haystack!

I didn't see a man named Malcolm MacDonald with two sons named Angus and Jon (and a daughter) from Lewis on any of the ship registers I looked at on Ancestry.ca a few months ago when I was paying for the full membership.

My worry is that I could pay through the nose trawling incomplete databases and coming up empty. The existing records are far from comprehensive in the late 1700s and not all of them are even online. Thought I'd post this here in the hopes that there was a cousin out there that had already hit the jackpot. Either that or someone with a full subscription to one of these databases that wouldn't mind taking a boo.

I'll check your link though as it looks quite interesting and I very much appreciate the assistance you've offered so far.

Slàinte!

[CMcG]

I didn't see a man named Malcolm MacDonald with two sons named Angus and Jon (and a daughter) from Lewis on any of the ship registers I looked at on Ancestry.ca a few months ago when I was paying for the full membership.

My worry is that I could pay through the nose trawling incomplete databases and coming up empty. The existing records are far from comprehensive in the late 1700s and not all of them are even online. Thought I'd post this here in the hopes that there was a cousin out there that had already hit the jackpot. Either that or someone with a full subscription to one of these databases that wouldn't mind taking a boo.

As you say, a lot of stuff isn't online. On the bright side, new documents and info are being added every day!

What I'm seeing is that Ancestry.ca doesn't actually have very many ship lists, but rather indexes names listed in books. There are a few hits for your ancestors that look possible, but don't give enough info online to tell for sure... Some of those books are in the York library so I'll take a look for you the next time I go up to campus Other ones are in the National Library and Archives of Canada, which you can order photocopies of very inexpensively.

I don't want to waste a bunch of money either, so I'm using free online sources to point me towards things stored in archives, rather than signing up for more paid services. Like you, I have some info about my ancestors and I'm using that to narrow down my "haystack" Nonetheless, it seems that to get back further is going to require sorting through potential leads and a process of elimination. Basically, it's going to take effort and research

It would be super nice to find a long lost cousin who has the answers, though. I'm hoping for the same thing myself

[Dangerdean]

I think you need to Paypal some money to someone in Scotland. The Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages can look into this stuff for £7/15 minutes rather than the per query fee at Scotland's People.
I dropped into one this summer with my paternal great-grandparents' names and date of death and the registrar found their birth, death and marriage registry, as well as the info for their respective parents in fifteen minutes. Who knows how far I could have gone if I had made an appointment ahead of time?

[creagdhubh]

I don't want to waste a bunch of money either, so I'm using free online sources to point me towards things stored in archives, rather than signing up for more paid services. Like you, I have some info about my ancestors and I'm using that to narrow down my "haystack" Nonetheless, it seems that to get back further is going to require sorting through potential leads and a process of elimination. Basically, it's going to take effort and research

Yes, indeed it will, but the results can be oh so rewarding!

I began my genealogical research during my freshman year of high school back in 1995. Unfortunately, in 2006 I hit a road block with the Highland ancestry of my direct paternal line at the year 1737 - not bad I suppose. Luckily for my immediate family and I, my great-uncle Lloyd Macpherson, has always been rather keen on our family's Scottish genealogy and has a plethora of various records (copies of birth certificates, death certificates, census reports, marriage certificates, parish records, deeds, etc) and important documentation, all of which was vital to my research. Not every family is so fortunate, even still, it took an enormous amount of time, energy, diligence, perserverance and research to discover and correctly document what I have now. Not to mention a wee bit of money.

Cheers,

[Nathan]

Nonetheless, it seems that to get back further is going to require sorting through potential leads and a process of elimination. Basically, it's going to take effort and research

Well I hear that! The MacDonalds have been passing down information through the generations since this Angus, so we have a nice box of heirlooms, photos and documents to start from. My brother and I have spent a considerable amount of time, effort and money filling in the rest of that tree you saw on Ancestry.ca.

As I said, the problem is that we keep coming up snake eyes when we try to go back further than Angus. I admit that I have been relying on online resources as well as speaking to older relatives for most of my information. Your archives leads are interesting. Who better to ask for research tips than a Phd candidate?

One example of an heirloom that we've been passing down is this obituary for the same Angus.

[creagdhubh]

Who better to ask for research tips than a Phd candidate?

I second that!