MY SCOTTISH FAMILY HISTORY PAGE

        I am currently researching my family history in the Counties of Kincardineshire
        and Perthshire.

        Place Names in Kincardineshire: Fetteresso/Fordoun/Glenbervie/Laurencekirk
        Surnames in Kincardineshire: McDonald/Falconer/McKenzie/Christie/Stiven/Burnett

        Laurencekirk, a town in the Howe of the Mearns, which became renowned for its manufacture of wooden snuffboxes, had been a hamlet until Lord Gardenstone laid out the new village around 1770. Among its first residents were James McDonald, a wheelwright, and Charles Stiven, a joiner on the Gardenstone estate.

        James McDonald was my great/great/great/great grandfather. He married his first wife, Helen Falconer, in Fordoun in 1760. There were two children from this marriage, Margaret and James. He married his second wife, Jean McKenzie, in Laurencekirk in 1782 and it is from this marriage that I am descended.

        Charles Stiven was born into a Jacobite supporting family in Glenbervie in 1753 and named after the 'Young Pretender'. He moved to the village at about the same time as James Mcdonald and their families became closely connected. He made the first Laurencekirk snuffbox for Lord Gardenstone's factor, David Beattie, around 1783. He also made fishing rods and wooden toys from his premises which doubled as the stagecoach booking office.

        James's son, Robert, married Charles's daughter, Elizabeth. They were the parents of Dr Alexander McDonald, who as assistant surgeon on the ship 'Terror', perished on Sir John Franklin's last expedition to the Arctic, in search of the northwest passage.

        Place Names in Perthshire: Inverchroskie/Kirkmichael/Merklands/Soilrie
        Surnames in Perthshire: McDonald/McIntosh/Robertson

        John McDonald, a farmer, was born in 1801 in the Craig of Soilrie to James McDonald and Marjory McIntosh. In 1827, in Kirkmichael, he married Ann Robertson of Inverchroskie. In 1858, in Dundee, their second son, William, married Elisabeth McDonald, a grand-daughter of Robert McDonald of Laurencekirk.

        William and Elisabeth and eight of their nine children emigrated to Australia in the late 1890s and settled in Victoria.

        If you would like to exchange information regarding these families, please email me from the link above.

        If you would like to exchange information regarding these families, please contact me at:

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