Descendants of Donald McDougall of Fortingall

The McDougall side of the family lived in Fortingall and Kenmore Parishes in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries. The name is prevalent along the Scottish west coast, but there were small offshoots elsewhere and upper Tayside supported several communities. Some historians think that the district was populated by McDougalls from the west coast as early as the 14^th Century. In 1368 King David Bruce is said to have granted Glenlyon to John MacDougall and his wife (the king's niece). In 1372 the grant was confirmed to MacDougall himself.

Donald McDougall

Although there was a permanent community of McDougalls on the south side of Loch Tay, there were several McDougall families in Fortingall parish on the north side. The most notable of these lived at the hamlets of Blairish and Easter Drumcharry . At the latter, during the 1750s and 1760s, there seem to have been three such families, each one headed by a Donald McDougall:

Kathrin, born to Donald McDougall and Janet McDonald, was baptised at Easter Drumcharry on 12 January 1749.

On the same day, Hugh, son of Donald McDougall and Elspet McFarlane, was also baptised.

Eleven years later, on 15 January 1760, John McDougall, son of Donald McDougall and Kathrin Anderson, was baptised at Easter Drumcharry. (The last-born of this family, Peter McDougall, emigrated to Canada and his story can be found by clicking the link.)

It is assumed that the ancestors of our McDougalls were Donald McDougall and Janet McDonald for the following reasons:

Five of their six children were born at Easter Drumcharry between 1749 and 1763. The exception, Hugh, was born in 1751 at nearby Balnacraig. At some time between 1763 and 1769, the family moved to the farm of of Borland or Boreland near the hamlet of Fernan, a fertile pocket on the north shore of the loch in Kenmore parish. This was where Hugh’s children were born. But by 1769, when John Farquharson had completed his Survey of the lands bordering Loch Tay, Donald had died: a note in Book 2 states that Borland was possessed by three ploughs – those of John, Donald and Duncan McGrigor, Duncan Robertson and Donald McDugal's widow.

The children of this marriage were as follows:

Kathrin, bapt 12 January 1749.

Hugh, bapt 2 August 1751

Isabell, bapt 12 January 1758

Donald, bapt 30 July 1758

[these last two may have been twins who were baptised separately;

alternatively, Isabell may have been born much earlier and baptised late;

Donald must have died in infancy]

Donald, bapt 19 September 1760

Janet, bapt 27 February 1763

The other two McDougall families at Easter Drumcharry in the late 18th century continued to produce children beyond 1769; since our Donald McDougall was dead by that time, they may be discounted as ancestors.

Hugh McDougall

He was baptised on 2 August 1751 at Balnacraig to Donald McDougall & Janet McDonald. He married Mary Ferguson, who came from Auchtarra, just south of the Kenmore / Fortingall parish boundary, on 6 April 1775. There are baptism records for two of the couple’s children - Catherine, born in 1776 and Dougal, born in 1788 - that show they were born in Borland.

At this time (1780), an Alexander was born in Balnacraig (just E of Fortingall village) to Hugh McDougall and Isabel McDougall. Both he and his twin brother Peter were still living in Fortingall in 1841.

Alexander McDougall

Also around 1780, another Alexander was born, probably in Boreland, this time to Hugh McDougall and Mary Ferguson. He married Ann McGregor in 1810 and took up the tenancy of a small farm at Cuiltrannich on the steep slopes of Ben Lawers around 1812. At least seven children, four of them girls, were born at the farm and baptised by the Minister of the little Church of Lawers, by the loch shore. Alexander spent the rest of his long life at Cuiltrannich. The farm was 4 acres in extent and can only have provided a meagre living. He probably supplemented his income by making and repairing shoes - when he died in 1867 at the age of 86, his occupation was given as Shoemaker. When his son got married two years later, he had been elevated to the title of Master Shoemaker! His wife Ann kept going on the farm, perhaps with her son Alexander’s help. At some time in the 1870s, she moved across Loch Tay to a farm at Shenlarich. Her son, who had married Jean McNab in 1869, was tenant of the farm. Ann died in 1882. She was probably aged 95, although her son must have told the Registrar that she was 100 years old.

Alexander McDougall’s children

Little is known of Alexander and Ann’s first and sixth children, Mary and Ann.

Catherine, his second child, was a Dressmaker who married John McLaren and died in Glasgow in 1889. Her son John was born in 1857.

Hugh was baptised on 20 March 1816 in Lawers. He became a Spirit Dealer in Edinburgh and married Jane Peffers there in 1844. There are three known children – Janet, Jessie and Alexander, and a possible fourth, John, who appeared with his grandfather Alexander at Cuiltrannich in the 1861 Census. Hugh died before 1855.

Janet was born around 1818 and married a cattle dealer called John Davidson. A son, David, was born in 1835 at Cuiltrannich. However, David Davidson’s death register entry of 1881 refers to John as his “reputed” father. Janet must have been a fearsome woman - she saw off John and two more husbands before she died in Glasgow in 1883. In Falkirk, in 1843, she met and married James McCormick, a mason’s labourer, bearing a son, Duncan, 5 years later. When James died, she married William Duncan, a commercial traveller, and moved to Glasgow.
David Davidson remained in Edinburgh and set himself up as a Spirit Dealer in Canongate. This occupation probably promoted his early death from cirrhosis of the liver in 1881. His Inventory lists a loan of £40 made to his uncle Alexander McDougall in Shenlarich. Perhaps he also helped to set up his cousin, Alexander McDougall, in the spirits business. The two men were evidently close enough for David to witness Alexander’s Will in 1874.

Duncan

There are few confirmed sightings of Duncan in the Scottish censuses and his death was particularly hard to find. He was traced through his nephews, the sons of his sisters Catherine and Janet.
He was baptised at Lawers on 6 January 1821 and next appears in two marriage registers: an entry in the Falkirk register for 4 December 1843 is slightly more informative than that for Edinburgh on the same date. It says that Duncan was a Resident of Falkirk while Jane Watson, his bride, was from Edinburgh. They were married at Portsburgh Vennel church (off Grassmarket) in Edinburgh. He was a Waiter. There may have been a degree of haste about the wedding, because their daughter Mary had probably been born in the town the previous month, perhaps as early as 4 November.
Jane died “suddenly” in 1854 when the couple were living at Crawford’s Close in the Grassmarket.

Duncan’s was not a particularly common name in a Scottish east coast city and two references in trade directories may well be his. One, D. McDougall, was listed in the 1842-43 PO Directory for Edinburgh and Leith at 3 Bath Place. And in 1850, a Duncan McDougall was a Spirit Merchant at 14 Dock Place, North Leith (1850-51 PO Directory). However, in the 1851 Census, a Duncan McDougall was listed in Glasgow. There is a case for supposing that this might be our Duncan: there was a daughter, Mary, a son, John and a wife, Jane; (the eldest son, Alexander, is known to have been staying with his grandparents at the time); his occupation was Waiter in a Hotel. But while the children’s names and ages are correct, everyone was recorded as being born in Edinburgh.
This family has not been found in the 1861 Census.

The only confirmed census sighting of Duncan comes in the 1871 Census for Glasgow. He appears in Struthers Street, just north of the river, along with a wife called Agnes and a young daughter, also called Agnes. He was a Labourer born in Perthshire. He had married Agnes Shorthouse, a farmer’s daughter from Kinross, the previous year. Whether he was the 9-year-old Agnes’s father or not is open to question – there are no recorded births of an Agnes McDougall in Glasgow. In 1862, however, an Agnes Shortes (sic) was born illegitimately to Agnes Shortes at 53 New Street (King St today) in Calton.

Duncan died in Glasgow in 1880. He was a Rivet Work Labourer. An intriguing note appended to the certificate states that he was the Widower of one Agnes Struthers. Evidently the Informant (his nephew, John McLaren) confused his wife’s maiden name with the name of the street.

The seventh child, Alexander, married Jean McNab and remained on Loch Tayside as a Shepherd and Farmer. He died in 1892. His only son out of 5 children was also called Alexander and also farmed near Loch Tay.

The eighth child, Margaret, married a gardener called Donald Malloch and went to live in Little Dunkeld, where she died in 1912.

Duncan McDougall’s children

Mary, born in 1843, may have died young.

Alexander, his first son, was born in Edinburgh in 1846. By 1871 he was a Spirit Merchant’s Assistant living in lodgings in Lothian Street. The following year he had moved to Brighton Street and married a widow called Catherine Yorkstone. If she brought any children to the marriage, they were not mentioned. On his marriage certificate his mother Jane is noted as deceased. On 12 May 1874, Alexander went to a firm of local solicitors with his cousin David Davidson and had his Will drafted and witnessed. He was dying from TB. The estate was made out wholly to his wife - no children were mentioned. At his death in October 1874 he was worth £183 15s 6d, most of it in cash.

A son, Alexander Watson McDougall, was born on 11 April 1875. In 1899, he was 2^nd mate on a cargo ship called the Stanley in Launceston harbour, Tasmania, when a load of timber fell on him and crushed his head. He was a day over 24 years old.

John Duncan McDougall

He was born in Edinburgh in 1848 but disappears from view until the 1871 Census, when he was lodging in a street off Vauxhall Bridge Road in London. He was a Tailor, aged 23, born in Scotland. What impulse brought him to the capital is not known. By late 1873 he was living in Clerkenwell and had married Hannah Rose, a 30-year-old Blacksmith’s daughter from Denham in Buckinghamshire. Their daughter Edie (Edith) was born in 1875 in nearby Gerrard’s Cross. The family then moved to Oxford or Reading:Alexander (b 1877), John (b 1879) and Rose (b 1883) were all born in the area. Rose would go on to marry Herbert Bateson in 1905.

By 1891, the family were in Brighton, at 26 Robert St. By 1901 they were at 18 North St. John Duncan died on 11 March, allegedly from drink, aged only 50. His death certificate, however, gave the cause of death as TB, with Exhaustion as a secondary cause, implying that he had a lingering end. Edie married William Page in 1903. She is said to have had a small bookshop in Worthing called The Green Jacket. She died in Worthing in 1953. John Ewart married Alice Page in Henfield in 1909. A photographer, he worked for HP Robinson & Sons of Redhill. This was Ralph Robinson's Rembrandt Studio, which was well known for portrait photography. He enlisted on 19 August 1916 in the Royal Sussex Regiment and died in Chanctonbury in 1946.