Our Scottish Connection

I have been searching my pedigree on Ancestry and came upon a connection that was much more full-fledged than I had anticipated: the Scottish connection. 

You don't hear much of daughter #2 on here because she lives thousands of miles away in Vancouver, and we haven't seen her for four years. I thought that since she once visited Scotland for a number of weeks that she might be interested in my genealogical findings.

Rather than rewriting, I will append, with some revisions, part of the email that I wrote to her.

My great grandmother Elizabeth Drew* (1851-1929) certainly had a Scots-like name. She married Israel Robinson of Irish ancestry, but there had to be Scots lurking back there. Mostly, however, I thought we were English and Irish. And mostly, I suppose, we are.

*In passing, I note that I have read that the name, Drew, comes from Druid. Take it for what it is worth.

But when I clicked on her father, who was Shadrach Drew, I just kept going back and back with multiple lines extending into the early 1500s and even the late 1400s. I guess the records are so complete because there was a lot of nobility back there -- barons, lairds, ladies, judges and so on. I even spotted a Governor General.

Shadrach, your great great great great grandfather, was born in Ontario, near Cornwall in 1825 as was his father Paul Drew (1803-1860). Paul's immediate ancestors were also born in Ontario, but several generations back on his mother's side, Donald Ross was born in Glencalvie, Scotland in 1774. He married Christina Ann Munro who was a daughter of Lt Hugh Munro. It seems that Hugh Munro and his father, John Munro, were United Empire Loyalists who first settled in New York State before then moving to Ontario during or after the American Revolution. 

John Munro was a colonel and also a  judge. According to the records, he was born at/in Foulis Castle in 1728. As I followed the lines, I keep getting dragged back with each generation doubling the number of ancestors until I began to get lost.

There were so many lines and people that I think I would need a 10ft x10ft monitor to display everyone. As it is, when I go back far enough, I can only see one line at a time amongst many. Since they are all just names to me, my mind begins to overload.

Here is John Munro's pedigree. You can enlarge it to fullscreen, and you can see all of their birth and death dates. The records go all of the way back to 1480. I never expected this.

The next screen capture is from a closely related line, the MacPhersons, which goes back to 1500.

Note: Your mother also recently recovered her pedigree on the Morton side. She was sent the document back in 2002 but we lost track of it. It was in my room on the floor by the file cabinet, under approximately 4 dozen used mailers. When we decided that we didn't need all those mailers, we, as in she, found the Morton genealogy document at the bottom of the pile.

Maybe I will also send some of that information at some point.

What I will add  to this post, which I did not include in my email to Allyon, are a few photos of some the most recent ancestors that I mentioned above.

Elizabeth Drew (Robinson) and Israel Robinson, my great grandparents, outside their farmhouse in Eastern Ontario, near Cornwall.

My Great Great Grandmother Helen Drew (nee Hall, 1821-1908). My mother knew her as Granny Drew, even though Helen was her great grandmother.

I know little of Helen's pedigree. Her father was William Hall (b 1784). Her mother was Mary (b 1786), but I don't know her maiden surname. I guess they were common folk who left little record. But it is Helen's husband, Shadrach, where the Scottish line(s) goes back into the mists of time, or at least into the 1400s in some cases. 

I have posted of these near ancestors in this post previously, so I will append those links so that I have them all in one place.

Great Grandparents Robinson

Great Grandpa the Cobbler

My Great Robinsons