McKay family of Thurso, Caithness, Scotland

[Brad Hulton]

HELLO MCKAY FAMILY, this thread is incredible. The research conducted is outstanding , and the contribution of each of those involved to the overall results certainly is to be envied by all of us McKays/Mckays who have struggled with the Scottish naming patterns and with the lack of available old records. I read through each page hoping to be able to contribute some bit of information and to make a connections with my Aberdeenshire ancestors named Robert, William, Anne, Hugh, George etc, but only to find the old brick wall-- McKay, Stephenson, Reid-- still blocking my path.

I have been searching for years to find the family of my great grandfather Robert Stephenson McKay born Oct 1813, in Freaserburgh, Aberdeenshire Scotland. Alas I have nothing to contribute except that I think this research should be passed on to W. Alex McKay, Seanachaidh, Clan Mackay Scotland, at https://www.clanmackaysociety.org/society.html and Kenneth Bain Seanachaidh, Clan Mackay USA. at [email protected]. W. Alex is working on a Memory Project to update some of the research on Clan Mackay.

For what it is worth
David Reid McKay,
No connection to the David McKay mentioned in the Thread.

Welcome David
I took a quick look but can't find any parish records for Fraserburgh so unless you can find them and how to access them I'm afraid you are out of luck. They may no longer exist since the Scottish National Archives don't have them, but you never can tell, they may turn up some day. As to your other walls... I would suggest looking in Strichen. It is about 13km south west from Fraserburgh and has many records from the early 1700's to the mid 1800's of Reid and Stephenson families. Given the proximity it is likely they came from that area. Further afield are other groups of both names in Cluny, Keig and the Chapel of Garioch. Try searching https://www.freereg.org.uk they have some record transcriptions in a searchable database, although not complete by any means, it is worth a look. Hope this helps....
Brad

[Brad Hulton]

Update:

It would appear that David McKay had siblings. Alexander in 1796, Isabel bap 2 Aug 1801 at Trantlemore and Mary bap 9 Jun 1803 in Calder, Halkirk, Caithness. I also noticed that Isabel's baptism names her mother "Margaret Munro" not Mary. If this was her actual name then I may have found a good candidate for her baptism, Margaret Munro bap 15 Aug 1770 in Bower daughter of John Munro of Stanstil (futher investigation lead to addittional records; a baptism for Janet 24 Jan 1773 a baptism for Katherine May 1776, both records name the mother as Margaret but one gives her maiden name as Geddes and the other as Gunn). Interestingly there where MacKays as witnesses at both Margaret and Janet's baptisms. That's it for now.
Cheers
Brad

[Dave McKay]

Hello Cousins,

My name is David MacPherson McKay. My father is David MacPherson McKay. His father was David MacPherson McKay. His great-grandparents were David McKay and Janet MacPherson.

It is so exciting to see that there are so many of us around.

David

[Brad Hulton]

Welcome Cousin!
Nice to find another one ;{)
Brad

[K Potter]

Brad,
My name is Kevin Potter (from Nova Scotia) and I am doing some follow up research on a James McKay from Caithness who eventually ended up in Guysborough Intervale, Nova Scotia. I had read many earlier postings in this forum with interest but your most recent postings on Donald MacKay and Elspeth (Elizabeth) Shearer of Barrock caught my attention. You list a son named James baptized 1 February 1756. Ruth Long (my Aunt) wrote a book on the James McKay Family of Guysborough INtervale but she was unable to trace him back to his Scotland routes. However, we found in her notes where she had handwritten from a 1989 trip to Scotland that Donald and Elspeth could be our James' parents. You will note that I wrote McKay and not MacKay as in your posting. Ruth obtained an Extract of an entry in an OLD PAROCHIAL RECORD of Dunnet that verifies a Donald McKay and Elizabeth Shearer of Upper Greenland as parents of a James born 1 February 1756.

The family lore for our James was that he took part in the American Revolution, returned to Scotland circa 1783 , then returned to New York (either 1783 or early 1784) with a Christina Stewart, and eventually made his way to Guysborough Intervale in 1784. He obtained a land grant as part of the Hallowell grants in the Guysborough area. He is listed in the Ac Jost book as being a part of the Allied Department of the Army and Navy groups that came to Guysborough in 1784.

We have not been able to verify the family lore and have been searching for any credible links for James' parentage.

I would be interested in your thoughts on the above and whether you other information that might support link between your reported information and our James.

Regards,
Kevin Potter

[tpbiii]

Hello Cousins,

My name is David MacPherson McKay. My father is David MacPherson McKay. His father was David MacPherson McKay. His great-grandparents were David McKay and Janet MacPherson.

It is so exciting to see that there are so many of us around.

David

Hi David,

Nice name.

I appear to be your 4th Cousin -- my GG Grandfather was William Earnest, also son of David and Janet and brother to the first David McPherson McKay. I am writing this post from an upstairs bedroom of the original David McKay house in Jordan Falls -- bought by him and his wife Janet in 1818. There are pictures posted earlier. The house has now been in the family for seven generations -- a pretty good run.

Best,

-Tom

[Brad Hulton]

Brad,
My name is Kevin Potter (from Nova Scotia) and I am doing some follow up research on a James McKay from Caithness who eventually ended up in Guysborough Intervale, Nova Scotia. I had read many earlier postings in this forum with interest but your most recent postings on Donald MacKay and Elspeth (Elizabeth) Shearer of Barrock caught my attention. You list a son named James baptized 1 February 1756. Ruth Long (my Aunt) wrote a book on the James McKay Family of Guysborough INtervale but she was unable to trace him back to his Scotland routes. However, we found in her notes where she had handwritten from a 1989 trip to Scotland that Donald and Elspeth could be our James' parents. You will note that I wrote McKay and not MacKay as in your posting. Ruth obtained an Extract of an entry in an OLD PAROCHIAL RECORD of Dunnet that verifies a Donald McKay and Elizabeth Shearer of Upper Greenland as parents of a James born 1 February 1756.

The family lore for our James was that he took part in the American Revolution, returned to Scotland circa 1783 , then returned to New York (either 1783 or early 1784) with a Christina Stewart, and eventually made his way to Guysborough Intervale in 1784. He obtained a land grant as part of the Hallowell grants in the Guysborough area. He is listed in the Ac Jost book as being a part of the Allied Department of the Army and Navy groups that came to Guysborough in 1784.

We have not been able to verify the family lore and have been searching for any credible links for James' parentage.

I would be interested in your thoughts on the above and whether you other information that might support link between your reported information and our James.

Regards,
Kevin Potter

Welcome Kevin.
I think it's very likely your Aunt was correct, but it isn't definitive. Unfortunately the records in Scotland are very fragmented and often inaccurate, the spelling of the last name for example, a person can be born with one name married under another and buried under a different name than the other two. That said, I couldn't find a record of another James being baptized in the area until 1761 and another in 1766, so if the data fits what you have as clues, I would say you have a probable match. Elpheth "Elizabeth" Shearer of Upper Greenland sounds right since Greenland is about 2.5km from Dunnet (Dunnet, Greenland and Barrock form a triangle of roughly equal sides) although that most likely means she was residing there at the time the record was made not necessarily "from" there. As to the family legend of him returning to find a bride, I could find nothing to substantiate that. No records of a James Mckay marrying a Christina Stewart where found. I would tend to think it unlikely he returned to Scotland and then came back to New York, that voyage would take a great deal of time and during the period you mentioned New York was being evacuated. I think it more likely he went to Nova Scotia (New Scotland) and was married there, then returned to New York to aide in the relocation effort. I would look in Nova Scotia for a possible marriage record (or perhaps New Brunswick where a large contingent of Loyalists went) to start with and maybe New York as well. I did find his land grant of a town lot in Guysborough in 1790 but it didn't give his regiment. I would also suggest you look at https://www.royalprovincial.com/index.htm Todd Braisted's excellent site on Loyalists.
Hope this helps.
Brad

[Inez Reed]

Many of the British troops including Scottish Regiments of the line were evacuated out of New York in 1783/1784. You'd do well to figure out just which regiment your James fought with. The 74th Regiment of Foot (Argyll & Sutherland), for example, did muster out at St. Andrews, Nova Scotia (now New Brunswick) in 1784. Troops were often encourage via land grants to muster out "in place" rather than to return to places like Stirling. These Crown Grants can be searched often by regiment or by the individual's name. Some men, I should add, that mustered out from the 74th in what's now NB ended up in Nova Scotia.

You could also do a universal search at Collections Canada, I'd hit the Ward Chipman papers.

Best wishes,

Inez

[K Potter]

Dear Inez,
Thank you for your comments on military service. I have undertaken an extensive search for our James McKay's military service and post war activities leading him and Christina (she also went by Christian) to Guysborough Intervale. I have eliminated several possibilities such as the Duke of Cumberland's Regiment, the St. Augustine group (on the Argo) and several other groups through a detailed online review of the Ward Chipman documents.

I believe that our James is a bit of an anomaly (or a mystery that needs solving!). Jost lists him with the Allied department of Army and Navy. But he and Christina did not arrive in Guysborough in June 1984 with the largest part of that group. So he arrived from a different route and maybe later, possibly as late as 1785. However, he is placed in the Intervale by October 1785 as the first son was born at that time.

Family lore has James being a part of the Black Watch or 42nd Regiment. However, I have read that the flotilla heading to the new world was separated by a storm with some ships ending in Halifax and some in New York. I again have read that a soldier might be allocated to another unit were this to happen. Therefore, I have scoured sites such as the one mentioned by Brad for any identification of a James McKay on a muster list or communication. The James McKays identified so far are either on the wrong side of the war or do not fit the information we already know about our James.

Another part of the family lore was that our James' brother Donald went to South Africa and made his fortune in diamonds. He had no heirs and presumably passed away there. There is a Donald MacKay who settled in South Africa and who provided services to the mines. However, he married and had an extensive family.

Inez, I agree that this part of the history is important to providing support to identifying James's links to Scotland and his parentage.

Thank you for your thoughts.
Kevin

[K Potter]

Thank you Brad,
I too struggled with the idea of James returning to Scotland and then returning to New York before resettlement to Guysborough. It has been said by a Cheryl Dieter that he and Christina went directly from Cape Wrath to Guysborough. This has been rejected as a possibility by a Guysborough genealogy expert. I have not dropped this possibility but I am awaiting correspondence from Cheryl for her support for the observation.

Thanks again.

Regards
Kevin