For Duncan and Hughie MacLeod, summers in Glencoe weren’t all about play. One day they were sent to help old Mr. MacDonald down the road. The old man was part of a large family known locally as the Bornish MacDonalds, to distinguish them from all the other MacDonalds, who were (and still are) legion in [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, language, names, Nova Scotia, Scotland
My great-grandfather, John Rory MacLeod, was born in July 1889 in the area of Cape Breton island which contains the small communities of Glencoe and Upper Southwest Mabou. (There are several distinct places up there associated with my family, such as Glencoe Mills, MacLeod Settlement and Upper Southwest Mabou, but my grandfather always refers to [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, English, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, language, migration, names, Nova Scotia, photos, Scotland
Most people who know me (and probably most people who read my blog) know that it really annoys me when someone spells my last name wrong. Actually, it annoys me a little less these days, just because I’m so used to it. But it’s still annoying. No matter how many times I tell people it’s [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: English, family, Gaelic, history, language, links, MacVay, migration, names, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, photos, Scotland
My family’s pretty Scottish, despite the fact that the most recently anyone in my family tree actually lived in Scotland was around the middle of the 19th century. When the Scots on my mother’s side of the family — all Catholic, Gaelic-speaking Highlanders — migrated to what is now Nova Scotia, they lived in little [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, language, migration, names, Nova Scotia, Scotland
My great-great-great-great-grandfather, John MacLeod, son of Duncan MacLeod, was born sometime between 1762 and 1770 in the village of Laig on the isle of Eigg and married a woman named Effy (short for Euphemia), who was born in 1771 in nearby Grulin (on an island that small, I suppose everything is nearby). John and Effy [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, Eigg, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, Ireland, language, MacLeod, migration, names, Nova Scotia, Scotland, Ulster
My maternal grandfather, Duncan MacLeod, whom I call Papa, once told me we were kicked off the Isle of Skye for stealing sheep. He told me this early in our talks about the family history a few years back, though they weren’t really talks. No, they were storytelling sessions, an important part of our culture, [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Cape Breton, Duncan MacLeod, Eigg, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, language, MacLeod, migration, names, Nova Scotia, Scotland
While I’d like to consider myself a fairly competent, experienced amateur genealogist, and have unearthed a great deal of information about my family history, I have to admit that it’s impossible to write a complete family history. The further back I go in time, the more ancestors I had: two parents, four grandparents, eight [...]
Categories: Heritage
Tagged: Armour, family, genealogy, history, Ireland, MacVay, migration, New Brunswick, photos, Scotland, Ulster
OK, I guess one of the first things I should do here is explain the meanings of the strange-looking foreign words at the top of this page [Update: As you can see, the phrases I'm about to mention are no longer at the top of the page]. Malays or any other Muslims will immediately recognize [...]
Categories: General
Tagged: Canada, Cape Breton, English, family, Gaelic, genealogy, history, immigration, Ireland, language, MacLeod, MacVay, Malaysia, Nova Scotia, Scotland, Sydney, Ulster