RootsChat.Com

“In the ancient Celtic culture, the history and laws of the people were not written down but memorized in long lyric poems which were recited by bards, in a tradition echoed by the seanchaithe.
Seanchaithe were servants to the chiefs of the tribe and kept track of important information for their clan. They were very well respected in their clan. The seanchaithe made use of a range of storytelling conventions, styles of speech and gestures that were peculiar to the Scottish folk tradition and characterized them as practitioners of their art. Although tales from literary sources found their way into the repertoires of the seanchaithe, a traditional characteristic of their art was the way in which a large corpus of tales was passed from one practitioner to another without ever being written down.”
If the Reverend Father John MacDonald had lived a generation or two earlier in Scotland he would have been the seanchaithe of the clan. Because of the Clan system there is no other group of peoples in the world that have the mountains of great genealogical information available to them. This gathering of family histories was important to Father John as a seanchaithe but more important was because he was a priest and when he married his flock he would be sure that they were not too closely related. Father John had a third reason for making sure of his accuracy in putting his Clan Ian Ruadh together as he was a descendant of that line. This is why I have been able to fit myself into his line as we were first cousins.
Father John was a genealogist and spent 65 years compiling histories. Father Ewen J MacDonald would spend over 60 years working with Father John’s great works. The most prolific genealogists were Duncan Darby MacDonald (deceased) and Alex Fraser who put all of his together in books and in charts for us amateurs to use or not use.
The key here is that these people have opened a door for us and you can enter or not. If you do then use what you find or not but thank them for their fantastic contributions without saying that most of what they did was incorrect.
I have had Father Ewen’s personal fonds for 10 years and would say that if he had all of Father John’s works in his possession he would have used it to reproduce charts as well as create new charts of his own. Never the less this very accurate information would not have been ignored as there was no other source on the Highlanders of Glengarry County.
To say that Clan Ian Ruadh (John Roy) didn’t exist is to say there were no MacDonald’s in Knoydart. Most of the MacDonald’s of Glengarry Country came from Knoydart and descended from John Roy or Clan Ian Ruadh. My own 3rd Great Grand Father Angus Ian III MacDonald who was married to Father John’s Aunt Catherine came in 1802. He was the son of Ruari, of Angus, of Neil, of Angus, of Dougall, of Ruari and of Ian Ruadh who was my 10th Great Grand Father. The information on my line came from the works of Father John and six years ago I completed the Clan Donald DNA test to prove the line back to Somerled my 20th Great Grand Father.
Anyone thinking they may be connected to this line can prove it with a simple test.

I have been to the Kilchoan Graveyard and have some pictures if interested.

Tal MacDonald
Canada

Hello,

The Clan is John Roy MacDonald from Knoydart and he is my 3rd Great Grand Uncle.
The Father John MacDonald of Alexandria (Paster of St. Raphael's) was my 1st Cousin and the son of John Roy above.


Tal MacDonald