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Messages - angusm

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1
Lanarkshire / Re: Families of Angus Graham & Mary Alexandria "Mae" MacPherson
« on: Friday 25 February 11 01:59 GMT (UK)  »
Just to clear this up a little, the Angus and Mary identified in Glasgow in 1881 are the right couple. Angus was also the one in Portree as that was where his parents were based. Angus'wife Mary MacPherson though was from an Isle of Benbecula couple that crossed the South Ford to Iochdar South Uist. Her father was Neil MacPherson, son of Lachlan MacPherson in Lionacleit, Benbecula and her mother was Marion MacLeod, daughter of a Skyeman who had moved with his Skye born wife to 2 Griminish, Benbecula as Maor or Ground Officer. Neil and Marion settled at 81 Garryganichy, Iochdar. It is possible either that Mary Lexy MacPherson met her husband Angus in Glasgow or that there was a family connection via the Isle of Skye. The couple emigrated to the Wapella area of Saskatchewan at much the same time as the proprietor of Benbecula and South Uist, Lady Gordon Cathcart, facilitated the move of a considerable number of her island tenants to the same spot. Mary Lexy would have known of this move when it was being planned as her mother's sister, Catherine MacLeod, who had married the boy next door in Griminish, Donald MacRae, was one of the Cathcart emigrants.

2
The Lighter Side / Re: Online course at Oxford University
« on: Thursday 17 February 11 10:01 GMT (UK)  »
It may help if someone who has taken an Oxford distance learning course contributes. As opposed to a course on a specific aspect of history such as the Victorian period, on retiring I undertook the Advanced Diploma in Local History. It is in effect a part of a degree course. Specific aspects of history are covered, mostly by reference to Oxfordshire or at least Thames Valley examples but the main foci are on things with a wider application such as the information available in Poor Law, window tax etc records; and on practice in the use of the technical aids such as databases and spreadsheets that help to turn data into intelligence.

Certainly I had fellow students from the US and Australia on the course and it was great to meet them in person at the graduation at the end of the course. By then some were well known in a virtual sense as, in addition to direct contact with a tutor to whom essays were submitted and from whom marks and comments were received, each tutor had a group of students linked such that we could discuss and debate what we were doing or anything that took our fancy on a daily basis. There was a cost differential between UK/EU students and those who did not meet those criteria so the utility of the course compared with others available round the world is a matter of judgement. For my part, I found it stimulating as a challenge, informative as to the detail of the matters that shaped local history over the past four hundred years or so and flexible enough for me not to get corralled into a focus on matters local to Oxford when my interests are with Gaelic Scotland. I hope this helps.

3
Inverness / Re: Donald Cambell of South Uist/Benbecula
« on: Thursday 17 February 11 09:32 GMT (UK)  »
Little Bernie: Just to complete the circle, you also mentioned South Uist. There was also a Campbell kin on that island that was seemingly unrelated to the Bard Sgallach line. They are described as having been present 'since the scrub willow' i.e. pretty well for ever. They are also associated with a Gaelic phrase 'sgriob a chabair' in reference to their having no lands and being forced to move on frequently, dragging the main roof timber with them and so creating the scrape or rut of the phrase.

It was natural enough that a Campbell family in Clanranald territory at this time should not be altogether well regarded and I would tend to doubt that anyone of that line would have had the resources to emigrate at the period you mention when the Passenger Act of 1803 had made movement more expensive, notionally to protect emigrant welfare but actually to suppress emigration, which was threatening to deprive the Chiefs of the labour necessary to produce the kelp that was vital to the profits of their estates.

No proof then but I would happily bet my own money on your Donald being a brother of Angus Campbell in Aird, Benbecula. Angus' father Donald there is the only Campbell tenant mentioned in the island in a list dating from 1775/6

4
Inverness / Re: Donald Cambell of South Uist/Benbecula
« on: Monday 14 February 11 23:22 GMT (UK)  »
Forgive me but the Angus Campbell I mentioned was born about 1770, is a famous poet in the area, writing both a praise poem and a lament for the famous Flora MacDonald's nephew Capt Angus MacDonald IV of Milton, who drowned in Loch Eynort in 1806. He was still in Aird after 1841 and died there, being succeeded by his sons. What I was suggesting was that Angus' family, which had been in Benbecula for at least three generations, so back to not long after 1700, and was the only family of the name in Benbecula, might just be the origin of the man you are seeking. It carried the names you mention, admittedly fairly common, and the Bard Sgallach, as well as a collected poet who figures in the MacDonald collection, was a tailor about whom there are still extant tales so that, if anything, though short of the specificity you are looking for, also supports my suggestion.

5
Glamorganshire / Re: David John Currie of Cwmavon B1879
« on: Monday 14 February 11 00:13 GMT (UK)  »
I am fascinated to come across this discussion of a Curry [once the name evolved it will have been Currie] family in Benbecula. The name Currie in whatever form did not exist in Benbecula or South Uist until about 1800. This is not to be rude or contradict what you have found, simply to say that Currie emerged at approaching that date through Anglicisation of the Gaelic surname, MacMhuirich. In Benbecula, Anglicisation of that name, which belonged to the bards and oral historians to the Lords of the Isles and then Clanranald for some twenty generations, became MacPherson and not Currie. It was in South Uist that the Inner Hebridean and mainland translation as Currie occurred. Two different priests is why the one name was traslated two different ways.

The first Currie of whom we have a record in Benbecula came from Barra in about 1832 and later obtained a croft on Eilean Flodda an island off the northeast coast of Benbecula. Funnily enough, there was a marriage at that time to one of the MacPhersons from the bardic family so Currie and MacPherson combined. There was only ever one other Currie family in Benbecula and that was established in the township of Hacklet in the 1840s. There was a James in the first of these families but not until the second half of the 19th Century.

If anyone involved would be so kind as to share, I should be intrigued to know anything more you have on the apparent cuckoo in the nest so long before and where the record exists.

6
Inverness / Re: Donald Cambell of South Uist/Benbecula
« on: Sunday 13 February 11 23:26 GMT (UK)  »
Sorry that I had never previously noticed this particular post but, in case it is still a live issue, there is something that may help. There was only, I think, one Campbell family, certainly only one of any consequence, in Benbecula prior to the time frame you mention. Angus Campbell 'am Bard sgallach' was tailor to the Clanranalds at Nunton about 1800 and was shown at one time as living there though he was enumerated in Aird when the first Census, that of 1841, was taken. Angus was son of Donald of Ewan and had siblings and perhaps uncles and aunts in Aird.

7
Canada / Re: Dan (Donald) McDonald of South Uist
« on: Friday 11 February 11 01:03 GMT (UK)  »
Just a note to anyone looking for the family in Benbecula. Norman, Jessie and family were not in Uachdar but in the Uachdar of Gramsdale. Uachdar in this context just means rather than literally the cream, the upper (part). There is not much inn it geographically but I think the upper part of Gramsdale will have been up on the hill or ridge a mile or so east of the centre of the then township of Uachdar and overlooking the original inn and landing place for the ferry that served Benbecula from Carinis when the tide was too high to use the North Ford.

I suspect that the family left too early for there to be much of a trace remaining though some of the younger children may have been picked up by the Old Parish Register, which was the Protestant record of the day. Quite a few families in that area had drifted in from North Uist and, if I read the posts aright, Norman and family were Presbyterian. That makes North Uist an almosr certain origin as until just before that, Benbecula was overwhelmingly Catholic bar a few families imported by the Factor, Duncan Shaw and Norman cannot have fallen into that category as he was an agricultural labourer and not a tenant. In fact I am a bit surprised at that status as, if he was indeed at Waterloo then he would have been in receipt of an army pension which, in cash starved Benbecula, was wealth indeed and attractive to the late Clanranald estate because it guaranteed the rent could be paid.

8
Scotland / Re: Interchangeable names ?
« on: Thursday 10 February 11 21:18 GMT (UK)  »
Perhaps the most difficult examples are on the fringe of Gaelic. Marion, Mor and Sarah are, for instance, routinely interchanged and there are other examples.

9
Inverness / Re: west gerenish
« on: Wednesday 26 January 11 10:54 GMT (UK)  »
Bar moving on a decade, much the same familes were still in Gerish in 1881. Heads: Mary Chisholm 79 Gerinish House; D McInnes 39; Niel MacLennan 38; Catherine MacEachan 75.

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