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MacGregor was my father's middle
name - Thomas MacGregor Thomson. So are we related to Rob Roy? I used to ask him
in boyish hope. He would smile at his son's eagerness to be a rebel, and say
well, yes, might be. But the truth is he had not a clue as to why he had been
called MacGregor. So Rob Roy was left to fade from the scene, leaving me to grow
up.
Several years after my father's death, I felt the urge to explore my family
origins, as so many of us do. After a day of exploring in the deepest portals of
Register House in Edinburgh the piece of information that intrigued me most was
my father's grandmother's maiden name - McGregor. So was it really Rob Roy at
last?! In fact I was soon to find out my McGregor ancestors were indeed of some
note, not as romantic Highland clansmen, but rather as skilled clockmakers in
the Border county of Berwickshire. Thomas McGregor was born in Duns in 1786 ,
became apprenticed to a clockmaker there, then married and moved to Ayton to
start his own business, making and repairing clocks and watches. He became a
master clockmaker , especially of longcase clocks, as I was soon to discover.
While thumbing through a library copy of Miller's Antique Clocks and Barometers,
I came across a picture of a fine longcase clock by McGregor of Ayton, circa
1810. So my great great great grandfather MacGr!
egor made grandfather clocks. Yes, that will do me. Shame my Dad never knew
that!
The irony is I remember that one of my father's proudest possessions was the
large polished mahogany longcase clock which stood tick-tocking away in the
front room, striking on the hour, every hour. He would check the pendulums and
carefully wind up the clock every Sunday night. Was it a McGregor of Ayton
clock? I doubt it, but there are some things we may never know. What I do know
is that after his death the clock was appropriated by a second-hand furniture
dealer who offered £8 pounds for it. What would it be worth now? At least £3000
to £4000 pounds I should say.
That's not quite the end of the story. I traced back the McGregor family in
Berwickshire and found they went back a long way. There was a Peter McGrigor
born 1708 in a Berwickshire parish. The McGregor Clan Society admitted they were
completely unaware of these McGregors from Berwickshire and were surprised that
they had been in that county for so long. McGregors certainly controlled the
cattle trade over many routes in the early 1700's in Scotland , and the belief
now is that a number of clansmen came to Berwickshire to direct the cattle trade
between Scotland and England. What goes around comes around and suddenly my real
McGregor ancestors start to look once more like my boyhood imaginings of Rob Roy
McGregor!
If you want to know more about exploring Scottish ancestry take a look at
www.scotroots.com Or you can reach Brian
by email at brian@scotroots.com
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