McDonald's of Crawfordjohn

[grendlsmother]

Don't trust everything on LDS - some of them are submitted entries and not always accurate.  My offer of assistance is still open - I have a vast amount of documentation on this family, most of it from original records on Scotland's People.

[Forfarian]

Did this research a long time ago at LDS library.

As grendlsmother says, you must not trust what you find at the LDS, as some of the 'information' it contains comes from very dubious sources.

It's a very useful index indeed to help you find the original documents, available at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk - but be aware that the LDS indexing from the originals at SP is incomplete.

For church records the index at SP is complete. It tells you almost as much as the LDS indexes, but doesn't add any of the extra misinformation.

If it's before 1855 and on the LDS site but not on SP, it is definitely not to be trusted. In that case you have to follow up and find out where the information came from to the LDS.

[Baird]

Hi there, came across your recent posts and without muddying the waters too much I have this info;
William McDonald and Margaret Hare had a daughter Catherine McDonald born 1817 died in Dykehead, Shotts in 1903.

Catherine McDonald married a Thomas McLean born Crawick 1816 the son of James McLean and Susanna McDonald. This Thomas McLean died 1883 in Shotts.
Thomas and Catherine had a daughter Catherine McDonald McLean born 1857 in Carluke.
Catherine McDonald McLean married a David Gray McIlvane born 1861 Shotts and died Glasgow 1936.
This is one line of a friends' family tree .
If you can add to this information it would be appreciated. When we asked in the area about the McDonalds and Mcleans in the area we were told they were probably brought in from the Larkhall area to mine around Leadhills as the seams were very narrow as they were in Larkhall.
Hope this helps.

[grendlsmother]

Hi Baird - just sent you a private message.  GM

[malcolmmcd]

The McDonalds at Leadhills were skilled miners before they arrived there. So the question is where did they mine before - there were lead mines on Islay and Ireland. As some of John and Bethia (Neilson's) descendants spell their surname as Macdonald one must say that they were Scottish. As for John and Bethia's marriage (1739) in Nether Abbingtoun, onthe same page are the marriages of William Neilson and Mary Neilson in Lamington in 1738. Same family as Bethia? Also Scottish women did not give up their surnames until a long time after this, so Bethia remains as Neilson not McDonald. Did they emigrate to Canada? USA? to Perthshire? Another mining area?  John didn't fight at Culloden either.

[grendlsmother]

Your post raises a number of questions.  How do you know that the McDonalds were skilled miners before their arrival in Leadhills and why do you think they had not been in the area for years.  I would not place too much importance on the spelling of McDonald / MacDonald/ mac Donald or M'Donald – all seem to have been used.  It is true that Scottish women kept their surnames but they also used their husband's names as birth/death entries show.  I have no evidence of anyone in my direct line emigrating and would suggest that their supposed absence is simply due lack of records.  My direct ancestors moved to Carsphairn and Cadder and subsequently all ended up in South Ayrshire.   I don't recall anyone questioning if John fought at Culloden – extremely unlikely as he was busy having a family in Lanarkshire!  Let me know if you have any queries concerning particular people and I will try to help.  I have a lot of info on this family.

[malcolmmcd]

As a McDonald myself I also have lots of info about my family. You may have read an interesting book about Leadhills which was on the Net for a long time but has now disappeared. The author states that one of the McDonalds in the early years of Leadhills was a smelter, which is a very skillful and dangerous job. So where did he get this skill - not at Leadhills. One of the McDonalds was also called Badenoch - was he from there? One of the workings in the Leadhills mine was named McDonald. As you may know the miners at this time were slaves in Scotland and their owners could move them around. The owners of Leadhills in the beginning were also owners at Tyndrum (ring a bell?). What I am trying to find out is where they went to - that is why I named a few places which some people might have thought possible but one couldn't rely on them. A "cousin" of mine in Canada will have it that their possible origins were in Glencoe. My DNA results on two sites - Ftdna and Ancestry show that we have relatives in  the Urguhart Clan. Which isn't far from the massacre. I am open to serious suggestions about them - not the most glamorous that they ie are related to Scottish chiefs and Flora McDonald.
PS. As you know so much about my family, I haven't seen your DNA results.

[grendlsmother]

Haven't had a DNA test - my info is from research.  You're not Fusilier are you?  We exchanged quite a lot of information some years ago.

[malcolmmcd]

Re: 4th June, 2023
I stated a couple of things which met resistance. The first one about slavery in the mines of Scotland. This was quite true as prisoners were made slaves, especially prisoners of war. This lasted until the 18 hundreds. An owner could move his slaves around to different mines.
Two, I said that it was not unusual for Highlanders to change their names especially when moving south. After over 40 years of research I have found the origins of my McDonald ancestors. It has cost quite a bit but ftDNA have supplied me with YDNA 700 results. My earlier results, 25 years ago were presented to Clan Donald DNA BUT were not typical of the clan.
These new results show that these Leadhills McDonalds were NOT McDonalds but belonged to another clan. I am the direct descendant of that clan's first chief. I also think I know which part of the Highlands they came from.
I do hope to solve this soon.