My Scottish family! .....

Kingfisher · Post by **Kingfisher** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:12 pm

Hi everyone
As of today, I'm a new member. My name is Ian McKay, and I was born in Liverpool, England, in the late 30's. My father was Bernard William Nelson McKay; also born in Liverpool, now, sadly, deceased!

My paternal Grandfather was Archibald Nelson McKay, born in Liverpool 5th March 1899. My Grandfather Archie's father, my G/ Grandfather; was, James Archibald McKay, also born in Liverpool, in 1858, to William and Eliza McKay, (This is where the good stuff, the Scottish bit, begins!)

My G/g/Grandparents William and Eliza Mckay, ( Nee' Jones), were married in Chester, July 13th 1849; and, according to the 1861/ 71 Liverpool census's, (Censi??) William was born in Scotland: believed to be in the Sutherland/Caithness area. His year of birth was 1817; and, on his 1849 marriage certificate, his father, my g/g/g/grandfater, is shown as Robert Mckay (Deceased).

Now I'm stuck, as I don't really know where to look next. I have heard vague mentions of OPR's but I don't know what they are; and, even if I did, I haven't got a clue where to access them. I would dearly like to discover more about my g/g/g/grandfather, Robert; and, all the rest of my Scottish ancestors. My family!

Can anyone out there point me in the right direction?

Regards
Ian McKay

Post by **Jean Jeanie** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 3:07 pm

Hello Ian

A very warm welcome to Talkingscot.

In reply to your query re the IGI. Have a look at this link

viewtopic.php?t=3433

Have a go and see what you can find

Any questions please come back and we'll give you all the help we can.

Best wishes
Jean

Post by **emanday** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 5:03 pm

Hi Ian,

Had a quick look on the IGI and found only two entries for William with father Robert. One for birth and the other for christening. Do you think this might be him?

WILLIAM MACKAY

Birth: 04 DEC 1817 Milnetown, Reay, Sutherland, Scotland
Christening: 23 DEC 1817 Reay, Caithness, Scotland

Parents:
Father: ROBERT MACKAY
Mother: JANET DAVIDSON

I also searched for births to this couple in that area and found these (using a 1817 + or - 5 years period)

DAVID MACKAY - International Genealogical Index
Christening: 16 MAY 1821 Reay, Caithness, Scotland

CATHERINE MACKAY - International Genealogical Index
Birth: 22 NOV 1819 Milnetown, Reay, Sutherland, Scotland

OR
CATHERINE MACKAY - International Genealogical Index
Christening: 22 NOV 1818 Reay, Caithness, Scotland

Kingfisher · Post by **Kingfisher** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 12:14 am

Hi Jean & Mary
WOW! I'm impressed again here! Many thanks to you both, for your prompt replies; I'm indebted to you! William's birth of 4th dec 1817, and christening later that month both look very promising. I notice that both Robert, and William's surname is spelt Mackay, and not McKay! Was it common for Scot's to drop the Mac and replace it with Mc, when they moved South?

Is there a clan difference between people who are either Mac's or Mc's? Thank you both again, Jean and Mary, for your help, it's really given me another possible milestone, and compass bearing, to work on. I hope that I can now dig a little further back! It's turned midnight now, so I'm going to call it a day! Goodnight and Godbless!

Best
Ian

Post by **Jean Jeanie** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 12:28 am

Hi Ian

Spelling means nothing!! A lot of our ancestors could not read or write.

When births, marriages and deaths were recorded they gave their names and basically it was up to the person who recorded the records to write it down. In other words they could spell any "Mc" "Mac" name however they wanted. Also forenames have numerous spellings. Elizabeth, Elisabeth, Lizzie, etc. etc. Jane can be Jean. Alistair can be Allistair, Alisdair, Allister, and so on.

As for clans......... McKay Mackay..........same thing. Nothing to do with moving down south.

I have McDonald(MacDonald) in my tree. Never left Scotland. The spelling varies from document to document. Again down to the person who heard what was said and wrote it down in his own form.

Hope we have been of help to you

Best wishes
Jean

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:02 am

Hi Ian

Just to reinforce JustJean's comments about spelling.

We have a marriage certificate for a Mary Ann McGilvray. The Registrar has the spelling of her Father's name McGillivaray, her Mother's name as McGillveray and her brother as McGillvery. All on one page.
We have a LAPRAIK line too. You can imagine what they could do with that! So far we have 26 variations.
Be very inventive in any search. Think of all possibilities and try to use the wildcards to bridge gaps. You'll still get surprises.
We found a LWPRICK but to be fair it did look like that on the OPR film. Not one of ours but we had to look since we often blame the IGI folk for mistranscriptions

Russell

Post by **emanday** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 10:24 am

Glad to have been of help

Like Jean, I have McDonald and MacDonald spellings right throught one of my lines. In fact, it was here on TS that I was advised to bear that in mind when searching. As a result I started finding rellies who had been evading me.

My grandmother used to get really annoyed when her "MacDonald" was spelt with "Mc", so that had affected my mindset when I started to search.

Some of HER ancestors are Girtrig, but I have to date found 11 different spellings, and yes, even on the same entry!

The advice I was given was "think out of the box and also make good use of the wildcards". It has saved me a fair bit of money.