RootsChat.Com

I'd be interested to hear if anyone knows of a John M(a)cKay — shoemaker, later quarrier — who married Catherine (Kate) M(a)cMillan of Kilmallie in 1824. Their home was 42 West Laroch.

He was my g-g-grandfather, and moved to Luing with a married daughter (Jane MacDonald) and two of his adult sons in the 1860s. His death certificate says he lived to the age of 90, but census records from 1841 onward would make him up to 10 years younger: therefore his birth date was probably in the range 1796 to 1806. He seems to have been born in Glasgow and has his father's occupation listed as "army pensioner" on the death certificate (1886). The army pensioner was also named John, and I'm interested to discover, among other things, if he was a Luing native who moved north, or someone with longer connections to Ballachulish.

I do have a John (a g-g-gf) who matches the Aberdeen one well in dates (christened in Rogart in 1806), but he was working in the quarries at Ballachulish in 1841.

My G-G-G-grandfather was a John MacKay from Sutherland, and recorded as a shoemaker, aged 58, in the 1841 Census for Sutherland. I have come across him only recently, as I've been concentrating family searches in Lochaber and south Argyll. I've yet to ascertain much about him, but he may have been an uncle of your Catherine.

He would have been born 1783 ± 1. If I've worked things out correctly, he died in 1855, and is buried with his wife, Ann Grant, in St Callan's Church, Rogart.