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Hi,
My father, Sir Ronald McMillan Bell, QC, MP, died 1982, aged 67, was the grandson of Flora McMillan (his father's mother) born 1843 in Tarbert, Loch Fyne. Her father was Donald McMillan, a cobbler in Tarbert, born 1815 and his father, Donald McMillan, 1764 to 1845 was a crofter, born in Barnellan just up the road from Tarbert.
I guess we are all related.
I remember that some cousins (2nd cousins??) were running a grocer's on the edge of Tarbert in the 1970s.  There must be a lot of third and fourth cousins of ours in the area.
Fiona Mather

Thanks very much for going to the trouble.
Fiona M

I'm interested in this post as one of my great great grandmothers was Mary Anne Tate born in 1835 to Anne Tate, daughter of George Tate , who was a son of Robert Tate and Elizabeth Tinniswood.
Mary Anne, who later married Charles Mconachie, had 14 children (including a set of natural triplets) and lived to 95, was illegitimate....apparently Longtown, Cumbria had one of the highest rates of illegitimacy in the UK.
I read that it was customary before 1837 to include the unmarried father's name in the parish registers and would be interested to know if anyone has sight of the Longtown (Arthuret) parish registers.

I have an obituary (one of several) of John McConnochie (an engineer) that gives the above facts but doesn't give the name of his father.
It is likely that his father was Robert McConnochie, my great great great  grandfather.
John McConnochie was Engineer to the Marquis of Bute and designed and built the Cardiff South Dock. He became Mayor of Cardiff.
He was a relation of my grandmother's and obituaries of him are among the papers of my father's family. My brothers were shown his very fine house in Park Place, Cardiff by my uncle when he was alive.
We think that he was probably a great uncle of my grand mother's.
Unfortunately none of my father's generation of the family, who would have been able to shed some light on this, is alive.
If his father was Robert, the father of my great great grandfather, Charles, who was born in Edinburgh in 1933 (the family moved around a bit) we would be getting somewhere.
Many thanks for your message.

Thanks to all who answered my query. I am in phone contact with a volunteer archivist at St Lukes who will advise me who it was who was employing John Bell(Coachman) in 1866 when he worked at Kenton Grange. For interest of anyone in that area he was the Grandfather of Sir Ronald Bell QC Member of Parliament for Beaconsfield. Tony Blair's first (failed)attempt to get in was against him!
Thanks again

I was really interested to find this posting....I don't know how old it is..... as I am a daughter of Sir Ronald Bell, the second of his four children.
Are you a relation of ours? What is your interest in John Bell, my great grandfather?
I would be really fascinated to know what you have found out about him.