McIlhagga - McLean

Parish Chest

I am returning to the section of the 'Ballycloughan Family' who moved to Liverpool, Merseyside. Crawford's eldest son, William was eventually to meet up with a member of another family who had also moved down the west coast of Scotland into England. This was the daughter of Donald McLean who had been born on the Isle of Coll, the eldest son of the branch of the Coll Macleans known as the Macleans of Auchnasaul who were descended from the second son of the Fifth Laird of Coll. However, the immediate relations who Donald left behind all moved to the larger neighbouring Island of Mull. There his parents and siblings were farming 200 acres as tenants of Druimfin just south of the island's capital, Tobermory.

Donald had left to go to sea and had been among the crew of the Passenger Ship Arabia plying between Liverpool and North America. He was in fact on board the Arabia in the nearby port of Holyhead in North Wales when the 1861 Census was taken. Soon after he met and married Anne Roche. Ann's parents were Francis Roche a Weaver and widow Julia Anna who had married in Manchester Cathedral on 26th October 1824. Donald and Ann married in Liverpool's 'Sailor's Church', the Liverpool Parish Church of St. Nicholas, on 21st January 1864. The record of their marriage may well have been stored in the Church's Parish Chest illustrated above, which strangely can be found today in Ladykirk Church of Scotland in the Scottish Borders.

Donald and Ann had three children, Margaret born 8th June 1867, Julia Ann born 18th July 1869 and John Francis born 15th September 1871. By the time Margaret had met William McIlhagga both her parents had died and her orphaned siblings had been sent to live with the McLean family on the Isle of Mull. Margaret was 'adopted' by friends (the Gillespies) in Liverpool. She and William married on 13th September 1892 in Bootle Presbyterian Church. Both families were Presbyterians from Scotland so William and Margaret could have met through the local church. More about William in another blog.