macphersons from skye

[breakish]

doing really well researching my family tree and now as far back as my ggg grandfather who is shown as 65 years in the 1841 cencus living in lower breakish skye, married to catharine robertson and has three children at this time john 25 years ( my gg grandfather ) donald 15 years and jane 13 years old, can anybody help to add anymore to my quest especially with donald and catharine

[breakish]

just to clarify my ggg grandfather was donald macpherson and my ggg grandmother was catharine robertson

[DonnieMac]

Have you tried the MacPhersons of the Hebrides web-site, if not can pass you on to an administrator for password, site is great everything MacPherson, sure someone will be able to help.

[Debbie in B.C.]

Have you tried the MacPhersons of the Hebrides web-site, if not can pass you on to an administrator for password, site is great everything MacPherson, sure someone will be able to help.

Can you post the link?

Thanks!  Deb

[breakish]

donnie i am member of this site, it is a good site but is more for benbecula and south uist macphersons, these are different macphersons to the skye macphersons, there are probably five differents septs of macpherson in scotland, the skye macpherson descend from the red parson in the 15th century, they are know as the " little clan from skye " and came to skye with hugh macdonald and ousted the macleods from sleat, there is also macphersons from argyll that are linked to the campbells, the south uist macphersons linked to mcmuirrich and the badenoch macphersons the most common macphersons, i have paternal bloodties with the skye macphersons and the badenoch macphersons

[Debbie in B.C.]

Wow!  Thanks for the history Breakish - that is very interesting stuff.   

I have quite a few MacPhersons in my tree, a lot of them collateral to my main line of McLure, including my 4x G. Grandmother - Christina MacPherson who married Farquhar McLure sometime around 1770.  Unfortunately, I know nothing more about her as pr's are not available for Sleat during this time period.

Thanks again for the very interesting thread!
Deb

[rachelbellman]

Hello,

I am also looking for some Macpherson ancestors - probably of Aird in Sleat.

I have the following details from a family tree, but we don't know how correct they are (until we get to John) and we don't know when they came to Skye.  The family rumour is that they came to Skye after the Jacobite Rebellion 1745. via Loch Hourn in a dung cart - lovely!

My 6 x great grand father was Finlay Macpherson
My 5 x great grandfather was Ewen Macpherson
My 4 x great grandfather was Dugald or Dougald Macpherson
My 3 x grandfather was John Macpherson

We have the names of 2 of Dugald's sons - John and Kenneth.

John was born circa 1797 and died about 1838.  He was married to Cath McInnes (b 1814 parents - Donald McInnes - blacksmith and Anne MacGillivary /MacKinnon prob of Camiscross).   Incidentally if you know any more about this line I'd be delighted to hear from you.

They had 2 sons together:  Malcolm b 1835 (my 2x great grandfather) and Martin b 1838.

We know that Kenneth took his entire family to Australia in 1854 on board the Hornet - port of arrival Geelong.  Have no record of them after that & would also love to know what happened to them.

Malcolm remained in Skye all his life, and the family croft was only vacated in 1922.  As far as we know they had been living at no 6 Aird for well over 120 years.

Many thanks,
Rachel

[Skoosh]

Rachael,  don't know about the dung cart, there were no carts in Gairloch in the 1830s, Skye would be no different, but the clan could have been doing with an alarm clock, they arrived late for most of the battles they never took part in!.......Skoosh.

[breakish]

skoosh that is obviously tongue in cheek, the Macpherson were a very powerful clan prior to the 1745 rising,  controlling the Wade roads via ther cattle watch scheme in what is now the A9 road, they had a bond of friendship with the Frasers and Camerons where Cluny daughters had married into the clans and vice versa. the Macphersons were also one of six clans that marched to Derby in the 1745 rebellion and were the instrumental clan in the skirmish at Clifton Moor on their return.
The clan regrouped in the Spring of 1746 and marched to Nairn on the ill fated trip, on the night afore the battle of Culloden,  to route the Redcoats on King George's Birthday where they Jacobites thought that they would find their enemies drunk, which was found not to be the case. The Macphersons marched back to Culloden the same night under darkness a round distance of about 26 miles and were sleeping in the heather suffering from starvation and tiredness when Culloden began.
Antecdotal information suggests that a witch told The Butcher Cumberland that if the Macphersons were to enter the battle carrying the Bratach Uaine (the Green Flag) then the Hanoverians would lose.
Our Chief Cluny Macpherson died in exile in Dunkirk after having spent 7 years hidden in a cave in Badenoch and was buried outside the Carmelite Monastery because he would not renounce his Protestant Faith.
So Macphersons do not need an alarm clock or to prove their worth in the Jacobite era as they lost everything they had "fighting for Charlie"