Editor: this is the full version, with accompanying tables of descendants, of the article which appears in the society’s Newsletter March 2008

Finding Gerhallow and Begatting a Website

In 1907 Neil Munro, perhaps better remembered for his stories about Parahandy and the crew of The Vital Spark, published a book ‘The Clyde - River and Firth’. Opening his chapter on The Cowal Shore he wrote:-

‘Looking, on a winter night, from Gourock, Levanne, or the Cloch, across the Firth to the further hills, whose masses are indicated in the darkness only by the break of their silhouettes among the thickly-sprinkled stars, you realise, as you scarcely can by daylight, some of the sentiment, that the Lowlands, where you stand, must have felt of old, fronting that barrier of cold sounding sea which cut them off from the mystery and danger of the Highland world.’

I had returned to Scotland in the summer of 2002 with some place names from copies of old records, places of birth and of marriage. I had found the two most important on my current ordnance survey map at the head of Holy Loch. Orchard where ‘John Gilmour and Isabel Maclougass in Orchyard…’ had a son baptized in 1747 and Dalinlongart where this son, Duncan Gilmour, fathered numerous offspring by his first wife Mary Mackinlay and then in the new century by his second Cathren McKeller. I am a descendant of the first marriage and John and Isabel were my five times great grandparents. As there are no siblings to be found in the Old Parish Records of Dunoon and Kilmun perhaps it is reasonable to speculate that Duncan was their last child, born just two years after the Second Jacobite Rebellion. Glancing back to the Neil Munro passage quoted above they seem to emerge from this forbidding earlier world in the rather scrawled two lines in the Old Parish Register.

I do remember my great grandfather Duncan Gilmour in Sheffield - just. He was born in 1851 in Ireland almost certainly like his siblings in Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire). He seemed formidably old to me but then I was only five years old at the time. He was a successful Sheffield brewer and Gilmour’s beers and the old pubs which served them are remembered wistfully by real ale specialists and the collectors of pub memorabilia.

Duncan’s father, also Duncan, was born to yet another Duncan Gilmour and his wife Anne Turner in 1816. In the OPR he was described as a cotter in North Gerhallow and this was the name I couldn’t find on my map. On consulting the 1841 census in Dunoon Library the conversation I was having with my son about this elusive location was interrupted by a voice saying ‘Did I hear you say Gerhallow?’ Well the response to my affirmative is what I call ‘genealogist’s serendipity’ or sometimes simply ‘pure gold’. ‘I can tell you where it is because I live there’, said Margaret White who lives at Bullwood, and she informed us that Gerhallow had been situated in the woods behind Bullwood. Later the same day her neighbour, another Margaret, walked up the hill with us to show the old remnants of this earlier occupation. I am eternally grateful to them both.

With the help of the useful map of parishes in Bute and Argyll which our Society distributes, I saw that the Old Parochial baptismal records for Dunoon and Kilmun were only extant from 1744 and those for marriages from 1742 and therefore realised that I was at something of an impasse. So I started to piece together a lot of information which I already had and was still accumulating, to produce a picture of the various strands of descendancy. Who were these members of my family starting from more than 250 years ago, where did they get to and how did the enormous changes they were about to experience affect their lives and where they lived. The ongoing research can now be found on the web at www.tamarvalley.org/bone * and it is arranged as a series of descendancy charts, with appropriate links, from the birth of the first Duncan in 1747 and fanning out to deaths in the 1950s. It covers family movements to Inveraray, Bute, Greenock, Glasgow, Ireland, England, India and finally to Australia, from where two entirely separate branches of the family have been added. To help the reader with the changes of surname on marriage I have prepared two tables for this article which summarise these, with details of birth where known, and of course date and place of marriage. Apart from hoping to find further branches, it may be possible to increase the scope of the site by undertaking the listing of the antecedents of both males and females marrying into these descendancies by adding any further information readers may have. To this end any contributions are very welcome and I would like to acknowledge the help I have already received from members of my extended family who have contacted me since I set up the site.

Something else arose from my reading of Neil Munro’s book. He wrote that he had seen an estate map of the Ballochyle Estate on which Dalinlongart was situated, and as it happens drew a somewhat erroneous conclusion from it. However I eventually tracked it down in the National Archives of Scotland and obtained a scan. It is a survey map dated 1819 which amongst other detail, identifies the location and buildings at ‘Upper and Under Dalilongard’. The adjacent land of Orchard is indicated but of course not surveyed. On asking a member of NAS staff to look up the catalogue reference of this plan so I could order it, she mistakenly read out to me the next reference in the catalogue. Imagine my surprise when she read out the title of a Survey Map dated 1814 of the Orchard Farm. Now that is what I mean by genealogist’s serendipity or pure gold.

(* Web services by High View- I do urge anybody viewing the charts to follow the suggestion about reducing text size which you will find under the Notes which are on the Gilmour Family History Front Page)

Contact Mark Bone member 5697, Gunnislake, Cornwall

MALES MARRYING THE GILMOUR DESCENDANCIES AS SHOWN Marriages involve a Gilmour unless indicated otherwise MALE SURNAMES Ballantyne, Bartholomew, Callander, Cameron, Campbell, Cartwright, Clark, Cook, Dawson, Gibson, Hill, Hogarth, Kerr, McKellar, McLaren, McLennan, McNiel, (and variations) McCrae, Mitchell, Munro, Murphy, Osbourne, Stoddart, Taylor, Turner, Walters, White JOHN GILMOUR & ISABEL MACLOUGASS Born Married McNIEL, John Kilmodan 1814 Dunoon DUNCAN GILMOUR & CATHREN McKELLER Born Married BARTHOLOMEW, William c.1862 1891 Partick TAYLOR, J. Cumbrae? BARTHOLOMEW Taylor CAMERON, Robert c.1868 Widower 1903 Glasgow COOK, Finlay 1938 Clydebank McLENNAN, James 1842 West Greenock 1867 Greenock CALLANDER, John 1859 Penpont,Dumfries 1887 Kilmun DONALD GILMOUR & MARY McVICAR Born Married TURNER, Dugald 1812 Kilchrenan & Dalavich 1844 Inveraray CAMPBELL, Duncan 1845 Inveraray 1871 Inveraray TURNER Campbell KERR, John 1903 Glasgow CAMPBELL Kerr MURPHY, John ?Inveraray TURNER Murphy BALLANTYNE, Robert 1894 Glasgow MUNRO, Martin 1818 Inveraray 1845 Inveraray MITCHELL, Hugh 1856 Greenock CLARK, Donald 1927 Glasgow OSBOURNE, Robert c.1859 Widower 1913 Inveraray GIBSON, John c.1892 1922 Inveraray JOHN McNIEL & CHRISTIAN GILMOUR Born Married McKELLAR, John 1839 Kilmodan McNIEL McKellar McLAREN, James 1831 1871 Glasgow McKELLAR McLaren HILL, William Frederick 1915 Partick McNEILL Hill STODDART, Andrew McDonald 1891 1913 Partick McNEILL Stoddart DUNCAN GILMOUR & ELIZA WILLARD Born Married DAWSON, Frederick William 1868 Leeds 1897 Sheffield MARY GILMOUR & DONALD CLARK Born Married CLARK, Donald c.1805 Arrochar 1836 Dunoon WHITE, Peter 1839 Kilfinan 1863 Dunoon CLARK White HOGARTH, John 1860 West Kilbride 1888 North Bute WHITE Hogarth CARTWRIGHT, James c.1882 1902 Dunoon WHITE Cartwright McCRAE,? George Whyte c.1890 1926 Dunoon CLARK McRae? WALTERS, Richard Wilfred c.1883 1910 Dunoon CLARK Walters

FEMALES MARRYING THE GILMOUR DESCENDANCIES AS SHOWN Marriages involve a Gilmour unless indicated otherwise FEMALE SURNAMES Anderson, Bruce, Buchanan, Campbell, Clark, Craig, Dick, Findlay, Gemmell, Inglis, Glass, Hally, Leitch, Lennie, Lewis, Maitland, McEwen, McGilp, McKay, McKellar, McKeller, McKenzie, Mackinlay, Maclougass, McNeilage, McNiel, (and variations) McVicar, Miller, Millegan, Mitchell, Morrison, Muldoon, Munro, Murray, Nicol, Paterson, Paxton, Roper, Saunderson, Scott, Sharp, Smith, Stevenson, Toyne, Turner, Wallace, Waterson, White, Willard JOHN GILMOUR & ISABEL MACLOUGASS Born Married MACLOUGASS, Isabel before 1747 MACKINLAY,Mary 1776 Dunoon McVICAR, Mary ? Inveraray 1808 Dunoon TURNER, Anne (Agnes) 1794 Greenock Middle 1816 Dunoon McKELLER, Cathren 1800 Greenock DUNCAN GILMOUR & CATHREN McKELLER Born Married McNEILAGE, Mary 1828 Dunoon MILLER, Sarah c.1821 Carrick 1845 Dunoon McKAY, Mary 1842 Glasgow 1862 Dunoon PATERSON, Mary 1904 Strone MILLEGAN, Elizabeth 1874 Poona Bengal MITCHELL, Anne (Agnes)1799 Strachur 1830 Stralachlan STEVENSON, Mary c.1881 1908 Old Kilpatrick CAMPBELL, Margaret 1919 Dunbarton MORRISON, Jenny c.1878 1902 Greenock McLENNAN Morrison SCOTT, Susan Andrews 1886 1912 Dunoon McLENNAN Scott BUCHANAN, Annie 1920’s? MCLENNAN Buchanan CLARK, Mary 1830’s Dunoon? McKENZIE, Janet c.1822 Roseneath, 1856 Dunbarton Roseneath LENNIE, Mary 1850 Dunoon GILMOUR Lennie 1874 Gourock LENNIE Flett DONALD GILMOUR & MARY McVICAR Born Married McGILP, Mary c.1858 1882 Glasgow TURNER McGilp MUNRO, Mary (Lilly) c.1826 Kilmichael 1845 Inveraray LEITCH, Anne (Annie)c.1852 Glassary 1876 Glassary, WATERSON, Ethel c.1881 1907 Clydebank GLASS, Elizabeth c.1890 1914 Glasgow DICK, Elizabeth c.1888 1924 Old Kilpatrick SMITH, Sarah Elizabeth or PATERSON c.1881 1908 Glasgow FINDLAY, Janet c.1878 1901 Glasgow CAMPBELL, Mary 1833 Innishail 1857 Inveraray NICOL, Jeannie Somerville c.1867 Carstairs 1893 Bonhill Dunbarton INGLIS, Elizabeth Inveraray? SHARP, Mary c.1880 1914 Aberdeen HALLY, Isabella 1839 Inveraray 1858 Inveraray MAITLAND, Janet Crawford 1860 Greenock 1885 Inveraray PAXTON,Isabella c.1838 1876 Glasgow JOHN McNIEL & CHRISTIAN GILMOUR Born Married CAMPBELL, Ann c.1847 1869 Govan McKELLAR Campbell McEWEN, Marion (Mary) 1823 Eastwood,Renfrew 1855 Glasgow McNIEL McEwen CRAIG, Agnes Flora 1858 Glasgow 1875 Glasgow McNIEL Craig MURRAY, Mary (May) 1876 Saltcoats 1898 Glasgow McNEIL Murray LEWIS, Amelia 1857 Saltcoats 1886 Partick McNIEL Lewis SAUNDERSON, Dorothy 1900 England 1926 Cairo Egypt McNEILL Saunderson DUNCAN GILMOUR & ELIZA WILLARD Born Married WILLARD, Eliza 1819 Dublin 1844 Dublin TOYNE, Lizzie Blanche 1861 Sheffield 1881 Sheffield ROPER, Sarah Lydia 1862 1889 Leeds MARY GILMOUR & DONALD CLARK Born Married WALLACE, Jane c.1895 1914 Edinburgh BRUCE, Bessie c.1899 1920 Edinburgh WHITE Bruce ANDERSON, Jessie 1896 Port Bannatyne Bute WHITE Anderson GEMMELL, Jessie c.1847 Largs 1868 Largs CLARK Gemmell MULDOON, Mary Ann 1890 Boness CLARK Muldoon WHITE, Catherine 1896 Dunoon CLARK White

Contact Mark Bone member 5697, Gunnislake, Cornwall