Reunion: A Search for Ancestors

by Littrell, Ryan

  According to Mark, the second match was Brundage MacDonald, the former High Commissioner for Clan Donald Canada. Brundage lived in Nova Scotia, and I knew that many Highlanders emigrated to Canada beginning in the late 18th century.

  This brought a whole new possibility. Because of the distance between the U.S. and New Zealand, Colin and I probably didn’t share an ancestor who lived in one and then emigrated to the other, so my line probably branched off from his back in Scotland. But Nova Scotia was just 50 miles or so from Maine. It was easy to envision a MacDonald coming to Pennsylvania, say, in the mid-1700s, and then one set of cousins found their way north and east, while another set of cousins went south and west.

  Brundage’s email address wasn’t listed on Chuck’s personal page, either, but Chuck’s third match did have an email address listed, and I started typing. His name was Michael, but I went with “Mr. MacDonald,” just to be safe. I introduced myself, wrote what I knew about my McDonald family, mentioned that Mark had revealed our shared descent from the Glencoe MacDonalds, and asked whether he might be willing to share what he knew about his MacDonald ancestors.

  And within a few days, he wrote back. He didn’t mention where he was from, and he didn’t know a lot of details about his family history, but he was certain that his ancestors were from Glencoe, and he’d always been told that they were survivors of what happened in 1692. One of his relatives knew the family tree, so he’d reach out to her and then let me know what he found.

  In the meantime, I was doing some online peeking.

  Mark had said that Colin was an active member of Clan Donald New Zealand, so maybe I could just find out more by going to their site. I wasn’t stalking, I told myself. No, I was just wondering whether Colin had willingly given out his phone number or email address, and that was very different from snooping. I hoped.

  Soon I was reading what people had posted all around the site—asking for clues about their MacDonald ancestors, saying hello to all their Clan Donald cousins out there. Then, suddenly, there was that name: Colin MacDonald.

  His post was short, just a few lines long. In it, he mentioned that he was applying to be recognized as the chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe. The post didn’t say anything else about Colin, but it did give one final thing.

  His email address.

  I wrote to Mark, and he responded that it was perfectly fine to email Colin. And as it turned out, Brundage had given Mark his email address a few years before.

  All right then, let’s start with Colin. Let’s start with “Dear Mr. MacDonald.” I said hello, laid out what I knew about my McDonalds of Missouri, and mentioned that Mark had told me about Colin’s descent from the Glencoe chiefs. I included a link to the Clan Donald site I’d found, the one with the footnote that referenced him by name. “It would be wonderful if you’d be willing to share more details,” I wrote.

  The next day, sitting at my computer, I looked at my inbox and saw the name Colin MacDonald in bold. “Dear Ryan,” he wrote, “How nice to hear from you.”

  Yes, he’d been working for a year and a half on his application to be recognized as the chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, and he’d seen the Clan Donald site’s reference to him, and he was receiving wonderful support from MacDonald folks worldwide. Still, the Lord Lyon Court of Arms in Edinburgh required airtight proof, and though Colin was clearly descended from the chiefs, he only had the required documentation back to the year 1788. So a genealogist in Scotland was working to uncover the pre-1788 records. Colin’s great-great-grandfather Donald, great-grandson of the Donald I’d found online, emigrated from Scotland to New Zealand in 1840, and the family had been there since.

  He finished his email by writing, “I have been to Scotland three times and always feel like I am going home.”

  I wondered what he looked like, and sounded like. I wondered what it would be like to know, your whole life, that you were descended from the chiefs of this glen. I wondered about his family. How many cousins did I have, out there, on the other side of the earth, where summer is winter and they grow up playing rugby? One thing, though, I knew from Colin’s email—my line must have branched off from his in Scotland, as I’d suspected before.

  Now, on to my Canadian cousin Brundage. I began, again, with “Dear Mr. MacDonald,” and let him know who I was, and recounted what I knew about my McDonald ancestors, and asked if he’d be willing to share notes.

  Two days later, before the coffee had even begun brewing, I saw: “Good Morning Mr. Littrell.” Brundage apologized for such a dreadfully tardy response, and wrote that he was descended from a man named Angus MacDonald, of Glencoe, whose three sons emigrated to Nova Scotia in the early 1800s. “Anything I can do to help you in your research will no doubt help us both,” he wrote, and he offered to send me his MacDonald family tree. He closed with the words Beannachd leat. Goodbye.

  And a few days later, after I’d emailed him back with my thanks and with more tidbits about our newfound DNA cousins, Brundage sent me his family tree. At the top was Angus MacDonald, who was born in Glencoe in about 1730 and died in Glencoe at some unknown date. His wife was Janet McIntyre, and her birth date and her death date were unknown, but it was known that she had drowned, and it was remembered that people had always called her “the strong woman who was good to the poor.”

  I went through the list of Angus and Janet’s children and grandchildren, because maybe one of them was my ancestor John McDonald. I saw that Angus and Janet had one son named John, but Brundage’s research showed that this John lived his whole adult life with his wife Mary Stuart and their children in Nova Scotia, from 1807 onwards, so it was unlikely that he could have been the same man as my ancestor John, who’d married Elizabeth Downing by the early 1800s and whose children were soon in Missouri. And Angus and Janet had two grandchildren named John, but both were born way too late to have been my ancestor John.

  So the DNA couldn’t reveal just where, in the past, my line had split off from Colin’s or Brundage’s, at least not yet. But the DNA results made clear that my John McDonald, if he were going to be discovered at all, would only be discovered through documents—through census entries or tax charges or scrawled wills.

  Now, I’d already found the family tree on Ancestry.com that said Cyrus McDonald, my ancestor Hiram’s probable brother, had gotten married in Warren County, Kentucky. That gave me a place to begin.

  I went to the online Warren County censuses for 1810 and 1820, and sure enough, there was a John McDonald. In both censuses, his age, his wife’s age, and the ages and genders of their children were consistent with what I knew about my McDonalds. And there was no John McDonald in the 1830 Warren County census, which jibed with my Elizabeth’s appearance as the head of her own household in Missouri that year.

  Then again, here was an Elizabeth McDonald in Warren County in 1820, and her family looked very much like the John McDonald family, with their ages and genders. This Elizabeth could have been my Elizabeth, too, because my John might have died or left the family before 1820, in which case the 1820 John McDonald would have been another man completely. I couldn’t prove that the 1810 John McDonald was my John, either, because I couldn’t rule out the chance that this John just happened to share a name with my John, along with some convenient dates.

  Still, these 1810 and 1820 Warren County census entries hinted at some things. There were two Angus McDonalds here—an older man in 1810 and a younger one in 1820. Angus was a very Highland name, and my new cousin Brundage’s ancestor was called Angus, so this might have been a family name. And John lived just two farms away from an Allen McDonald in 1820, so maybe they were related.

  I searched Ancestry.com again, and then searched everywhere else online, but Warren County, Kentucky wasn’t telling me any more. There were no McDonalds or McDaniels in the 1800 census, the first one for the county, and no online marriage record for my John and my Elizabeth, and no tax records, no
deeds and no baptisms and no burials, no transcribed remembrances.

  It took just a moment to find out that there are daily, non-stop flights from New York to Nashville, and you can rent a car and head north, take I-65, mostly, and you can be at the Warren County, Kentucky courthouse within two hours of landing. Ask to look at the records, bring your laptop along, bring your notes along, and hope the hotel has a decent burger.

  But then I got a new email from Harriett.

  Harriett Worrell and I had been exchanging emails since her response to my recent post on Ancestry.com, where I’d let the world know that my ancestor Hiram seemed to be related to those McDonalds who lived in Lincoln County, Missouri and Pike County, Missouri beginning in 1830. Harriett was active in the Pike County Genealogical Society, and was doing research for a descendant of Cyrus, my Hiram’s probable brother. I’d mentioned to her that Cyrus might have gotten married in Warren County, Kentucky before the family’s migration to Missouri.

  In this new email, Harriett told me she’d followed up on my clue, and had found a genealogist in Warren County who was searching in the county courthouse for Cyrus and his parents. Perhaps there wouldn’t be any genealogical road trip for me, after all.

  And, she said, he was already making discoveries. She sketched them in a few, fast sentences, and I thought I understood what she was getting at. But I needed to see the picture, the context, in order for things to make sense. I wanted to walk the cul-de-sacs. Would she mind maybe mailing a copy of the findings?

  She wouldn’t mind at all, she said, and a few days later, I opened my mailbox to find an envelope full of papers. The genealogist, Bill Danlon, had written his report as a chronicle, taking Harriett—and now me—through his digging, from beginning to end. Reading down the lists, reading through his notes, nearly put me in his shoes.

  Bill started off by looking at the microfilm copies of the Warren County tax lists from 1797 to 1823. The federal census takers only came around once a decade, but the Kentucky tax man made sure to stop by once a year, so looking at the tax lists meant Bill could track the McDonalds of Warren County from one year to the next.

  There were no McDonalds or McDaniels in the county from 1797 to 1808, but in 1809, Angus made his first appearance. The 1810 list was missing, but in 1811, there were John and Angus. And in 1812, there were John, Angus, and Allen. So it went for the next several years, with John and Angus and Allen all paying taxes, but Angus disappeared after 1819. There was an Angus in 1820, but based upon the value of his estate, this was almost certainly the younger Angus I’d found in the census records. Soon, then, Elizabeth appeared in the tax lists, and the location of her land, and the value of her estate, suggested that she was the older Angus’ widow—and the Elizabeth I’d found living in the county in 1820.

  So, Bill wondered, who might have been our Cyrus’ father, just based on this first set of records? The older Angus was a candidate, because he had three young, unnamed sons in the 1810 census, and Cyrus was born in about 1808. But John was a candidate, too; he had three young sons in 1810, and in 1820 had three sons between 10 and 16. Candidate number three was Allen, who didn’t appear in 1810, but in 1820 had one son in that 10 to 16 bracket.

  Then Bill turned to the marriage records and found the September 22, 1828 marriage bond for Cyrus McDaniel and Elizabeth Lemastes. This had to be our Cyrus, because I knew from the Missouri records that the name of our Cyrus’ wife was Elizabeth Lemasters. That family tree on Ancestry.com, the one connecting Cyrus to Warren County, had been right all along.

  A marriage bond was the groom’s promise to the court that nothing prohibited the couple from getting married, but in this case there was something more. Because Cyrus was under the age of twenty-one, he didn’t just have to sign a bond—he also had to obtain his father’s consent. That’s why another sentence was added to the back of the marriage bond: “I do certify that I am willing a marriage license may issue for my son Syrus McDaniel and Elizabeth Lemastes.”

  Underneath was an X, next to the name of Elizabeth McDonald. Cyrus’ father must have passed away, and Cyrus’ mother Elizabeth had given the parental consent instead.

  Now, Bill asked: Was there a male McDonald in Warren County who died before September 22, 1828, and had been married to an Elizabeth? From online family trees and message postings, I knew that candidate number three for the role of Cyrus’ father, Allen McDonald, lived well past 1828, and that his wife wasn’t named Elizabeth, so he couldn’t be the one.

  Bill began looking at records of land deeds, because these often listed the wife of the man who was buying or selling land. And deed after deed showed only one Elizabeth married to a male McDonald, and his name was Angus. Candidate number two. Was this Cyrus’ father?

  Bill turned to the wills and court records, since it appeared that Angus, husband of Elizabeth, had passed away in the county, and sure enough, here were several court entries in 1819 and 1820 about the deceased Angus’ estate. His wife Elizabeth was appointed to administer the estate, and in this one entry from October 3, 1820, Elizabeth was legally recognized as the guardian of all of her and Angus’ children under the age of twenty-one. Their names were Fanny, William, Charles, Sarah, John, Henry and Polly.

  No Cyrus. No Hiram. No Darius, no James or Rebecca, no Thomas or Betsy or Patsy, no Ezekiel Downing McDonald. Angus and Elizabeth couldn’t be the parents of my McDonalds, the young adults who appeared in Missouri with my Elizabeth beginning in the 1830s.

  Bill continued looking through the wills, and then the court records, and it was only there that he discovered that one other McDonald had died in the 1820s. His name was John. And at the county court on May 5, 1828, the right to administer John’s estate was granted to his wife.

  Her name? Elizabeth.

  John and Elizabeth had to be Cyrus’ parents, and this was the same Cyrus McDonald who lived in Lincoln County and Pike County, Missouri from 1830 onwards. So the Elizabeth who lived in Warren County, Kentucky, and who was the widow of John, had to be the same woman as the Elizabeth who was buried in Lincoln County, Missouri, and whose gravestone read “Consort of John.” And my Missouri trip had shown that this Elizabeth, the Elizabeth who was buried out behind my cousin Judy’s house, was the mother of my Hiram.

  Now I knew it for certain: My great-great-great-great-grandfather Hiram McDonald’s parents were the John and Elizabeth McDonald who lived in Warren County, Kentucky.

  This is why Elizabeth left. This is why she left her life in Kentucky behind. She had to find a new home for herself and her twelve children because her husband had passed away. Even her young, married son Cyrus came along to Missouri.

  But what about John? How did he die? There were no obituaries back then, and Bill hadn’t looked for a will or a burial record for John, so I didn’t know much about him. Still, I wondered whether Bill’s discoveries might say something about John’s family, his siblings or cousins or parents.

  I went back to the start of Bill’s chronicle, looking for clues to John’s relatives. And here, right at the beginning, was something I’d barely noticed before. The tax lists of 1809 to 1823 showed that Allen, Angus, and my ancestor John didn’t just live in the same county; they lived close to one another. Again and again, they were listed together, not because they shared a surname but because they lived nearly together, by Little Beaver Dam Creek, by Indian Creek and Alexander Creek, even out in the grasslands known as The Barrens.

  Then, reading Bill’s list of marriage records, I saw that the young Angus McDonald who first appeared as a head of household in the 1820 census was the son of Allen, who had to give his consent in order for young Angus to be married in 1819. Angus seemed to be a family name—in Allen’s family. That wasn’t all: When Allen’s daughter Patsy was married in 1822, my ancestor John served as the witness.

  So were John, Allen, and the older Angus brothers? And if they were brothers, who were their parents?

&nb
sp; CHAPTER 16

  AN LINN

  NAN CREACH

  Cha robh an rìgh ro dhèidheil air ar neart, a-rèir coltais.

  The king, it would seem, did not take kindly to our strength.

  He was dismayed to learn that the MacDonalds of Glen Coe had just now plucked our young Lord of the Isles from the cage of his most able servant Archibald Campbell, the Earl of Argyll, the Royal Lieutenant. He surely was dismayed to learn, once and again throughout the years 1501 and 1502, that clan upon clan had pledged support for our Donald: The MacLeods of the Isle of Lewis, the Camerons of Loch Eil, the MacLeans and the MacKinnons, the MacNeills of the Isle of Barra, and so many others.

  For all that, the MacDonalds were unable to summon quite the force we once could. The Battle of Bloody Bay, when Donald’s grandfather fought his father upon the sea, had sapped us, with much of our navy wrecked. Thus, as soon as the king’s dismay turned to resolve, he called upon his willing servants and chose to exhibit his might by sending his ships north and west. The chiefs of the clans knew that this was not the time to risk all.

  Yet, even with the king’s demonstration, we had won everything that we needed. For while he might claim dominion over the Highlands and the Isles, we continued to govern ourselves just as we wished. A chief was still the king over his own lands. Perhaps we could not overcome the crown in Edinburgh, but our rebellion proved that it could not overcome us, either. It could neither subdue us, nor police us, nor force the ways of the south upon us. For the rest of the 16th century, and quite into the 17th, an unsaid truce lurked behind nearly every Highland revolt, just as it lurked in the sighs accompanying each seeming reconciliation: We would make a convenient show of pledging loyalty to the kings of Scotland from time to time, and those kings would, for the greater part, leave us to ourselves.

  So it was that my ancestors remained here in the glen, beneath the peaks of the Feinn. My fathers had proven to the Campbell that our dùthchas could be severed from us only with our heads.