GLENS OF ANTRIM FAMILIES. The strong historical, cultural and family links between Kintyre and the Glens of Antrim - reinforced by migrations in both directions over millennia - weakened only in the 20th century; but the legacy survives in the genetic composition of the respective populations and in the many shared surnames. In Kintyre there remain innumerable descendants of families from Ireland and more specifically County Antrim, owing to its geographical proximity. Kintyre genealogists should therefore welcome the forthcoming publication of Family Names in the Glens of Antrim by Brian S. Turner, who has been researching the subject for nearly 50 years. The 192-page hardback 'describes and explains the evolution or the historical landscape through an examination of the names of its people', and incorporates 30-plus surname distribution maps and more than 50 photographs. The book is on subscription offer at £19.99, plus postage and packaging, until 30 April 2021, and subscribers' names will appear in a list within the book. The publisher is Ulster Historical Foundation, Newtownards, County Down, and further information about the book and subscription may be obtained at www.booksireland.org.uk/store/all-departments/family - names or by going on to the KANHS website (see page 1).

CLAN MACMILLAN DNA PROJECT. As part of this genealogical project, funds are available to pay for Y -DNA testing of MacMillans from Kintyre, which is considered to be 'the homeland of the largest MacMillan group'. As of February 2021, the project, which began in 2004, had 626 participants around the world, including the Chief, George MacMillan.
Applicants would require to be male with a genealogical 'paper trail' going back to the mid-18th century in Kintyre.
The project is hosted by Family Tree DNA and can be accessed at: https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/mac-millan/about/background
Robert McMillan, one of the adminstrators, will welcome enquiries at: rob.mcmillanjr@yahoo.com

KINTYRE HERALDRY. Dr James Floyd of the The Heraldry Society of Scotland is compiling a Gazeteer of Architectural Heraldry for Scotland, and, owing to current travel restrictions, seeks local assistance in obtaining good close-up photographs of shields or coats or arms carved on gravestones and or the stones themselves. The following churchyards are known to have relevant gravestones or panels: Cill Aindreis, Tarbert (1 feature), Kilchousland (1), Kilehenzie (1), Kilkerran (9), Killean (1), Saddell Abbey (1), St Ninian's, Sanda (1), Skipness (1), Kilcolmkill, Southend (4), plus Glenreasdell Lodge (1) and Lossit House (1).
More detailed information can be obtained from Dr Floyd at J.D.Floyd@hw.ac.uk and The Heraldry Society of Scotland website can be accessed at http://www.heraldry-scotland.co.uk

An earlier article in this Magazine (No. 86, pp. 6-11) described how a business diary, kept by Malcolm Currie in Cleongart, was returned to his descendants. The article described the nature of Malcolm's business between 1765 and 1791. Almost as remarkable as the survival of the diary is the story of its journey from Kintyre to Great Falls, Montana, U.S.A., where it was discovered by a visiting scientist, Dr Burton Schaber. This article attempts to outline the route, and some of the associated events, of the diary, and its owners over two centuries.

The first holder of the diary, Malcolm Currie, born c 1749, was a farmer, living on the farms of Cleongart, Corputechan and Drumore/Drumorenabodach in Killean and Kilkenzie Parish, Kintyre.

His diary lists various transactions, stock, trades, etc, as he went about his business of fanning, whisky-distilling, and trading. It paints a picture of an active businessman, engaged in many pursuits and recording the transactions in considerable detail over many years.

Malcolm and his wife, Marrion or Sarah Black, had at least seven children between 1771 and about 1790. One of their daughters, Flora Currie, was believed to have married a McPhail and emigrated to North America, so I traced her line in the hope of finding a connection to Great Falls, Montana. After considerable research, and a few fruitless lines of exploration, I found that the most likely connection between Killean and Great Falls was as shown below.

The second holder of the diary, Flora Currie, was born about 1778 in Corputechan, the fifth of the seven or more children. By 1792, a Flory Curry, aged 14, was living in Bellochantuy with apparent siblings Malcolm, aged II, and Iver, aged nine. There was no record of her parents nearby. It is possible that these three children were orphaned by 1792 and were living with friends or family in the village. The ages of Flora and Malcolm are consistent with known birthdates for children of Malcolm Currie, but there is no matching birth in the records for an Iver (or Edward, an alternative name for Iver).

Flora Currie, Drumore, is recorded as marrying Neil McPhail, Cleongart, in the spring of 1810 .. The couple had at least four children between 1811 and 1818, three of them born in Cleongart. It is likely, judging by the family circumstances and the location, that Neil and his older children worked on local farms, but there are few traces of the lives of Flora and Neil McPhail. We have no later census records, and no death records or gravestones are recorded.

We know that at least three of Flora and Neil's four children emigrated to Canada, and the story of one of them is shown below. The fourth child, Sarah, born in 1818, has not been found after that date. In that era, many emigrants took elderly parents with them, but no trace has been found of Flora and Neil in passenger lists or in any Ontario records.

The third holder of the diary, Lachlan McPhail of Brock, Ontario (1811190 I), was the first child of Neil McPhail and Flora Currie. He was born in Cleongart about 1811 and is believed to have emigrated to Canada about 1841, settling in Brock Township, where he cleared virgin forest to create his homestead. The first formal record we have in Canada is the 1861 census for Brock, where he is living with a Mary McPhail, probably his sister, and farming there.

By 1871, Lachlan was married to a Kintyre woman named Catherine McLachlan (1839-1914), a daughter of Dougald, shoemaker, and Jane Mcllreavie in Crubisdale. Lachlan and Catherine went on to have eight children, several of whom continued farming in or near Brock. The fifth child in the family was Malcolm McPhail who broke with family tradition to become a doctor in Ontario, Michigan and Montana.

The fourth holder of the diary, Malcolm McPhail of Detroit, Michigan (1869-1948), initially qualified as a teacher and taught in rural Ontario for five years before entering the University of Toronto to study medicine. He graduated in 1895 and began his medical practice in Manilla, Ontario. He was, however, not simply a rural GP: his obituary states that he took up postgraduate studies in New York, in England, and in Scotland, before emigrating to the U.S.A. and setting up an urban medical practice in Detroit in 1914. Before travelling to Detroit, he made a visit to Kintyre, recording his trip in some detail, and describing his attempts to find relatives.

In the 1940 census, he is recorded as being aged 70, yet still working a 48-hour week as a physician in private practice. He was living in Webb Street, where new houses had been built around 1936. Most of those houses are still standing, many of them large, with six or more bedrooms, individually designed, and largely well maintained to this day.

Dr McPhail practised in Detroit until his retirement in 1942, then moved to Montana to live closer to his son. There he took up medical practice again, working in Great Falls until his death in 1948. By then he had practised medicine for 53 years. Obituaries and other documents describe him as a 'pioneer physician', especially in his work in Montana. He was very active in the medical associations of the area and was also an elder in the Presbyterian Church in Detroit.

Dr McPhail's wife, Alice Butland, had qualified as a nurse in Ontario, but later studied to become an expert in parliamentary law, organising classes on the topic for women in Great Falls. Her students set up the Alice B. McPhail Parliamentary Law Club, which continued to operate for some years after her death in 1955. The couple had one son, Francis, who ended his days in Great Falls, the only descendant of Malcolm Currie to live there, and we believe that the diary passed to him.

The fifth holder of the diary, Dr Frank McPhail of Great Falls, Montana (1899-1977), was born Francis Lachlan McPhail in Ontario, and qualified as a doctor at the University of Michigan. He continued to study at Chicago Lying-in Hospital, where he completed his obstetrical training.

He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force as a 2nd Lieutenant between 1918 and 1919, and in the U.S. Medical Corps from 1942 to 1946. In the 1960s, he commented, somewhat wryly, that, as an obstetrician, he was assigned to dermatology and orthopaedics! In 1924, Frank married Helene Torrey, an alumna of the University of Michigan. She worked as a teacher and supported him through medical school. In the autumn of 1930, Frank, Helene and their two young daughters moved to central Detroit, where he took up his obstetrical practice. It was in the depths of the Depression, and he, like all medical professionals at that time, was keen to take up any work available.

He responded to a call one night to see a sick woman on the east side of the city, but on arriving at the address he was met by a gunman and several gang members. He was told that he was being kidnapped and would be held to ransom. The gang members believed - incorrectly - that his father, Dr Malcolm McPhail, was wealthy and would pay a substantial ransom. The gang in question were not amateurs, but were part of the notorious Purple Gang, the major crime syndicate in the city. As well as kidnapping, gang members were running, or deeply involved in, bootlegging, vice, drugs, and murders.

Dr McPhail was detained by them in a warehouse, had almost all his belongings taken from him, but was allowed to retain his prescription pad. In his damp and chilly attic room, he was able to tear off pages, stick them to the windows, and spell out the word o Help'. Some passing schoolgirls saw the message and called the police. When the kidnappers returned they were arrested and he was freed, with no ransom being paid. The penalties for the kidnappers were severe, with at least one of them being sentenced to 30 years in jail.

The whole family did some soul-searching after this incident, and decided that they wanted to live and work away from a big city and its intrinsic dangers. An obstetrician's post came up in Great Falls, so Frank, Helene, and their two daughters moved there in 1931. A third daughter was born in Montana in 1938. Much like his father, Dr McPhail participated in his profession to a much greater degree than was required by his medical role alone. As well as delivering more than 8,000 babies, he was a founder of, and an active participant in, several medical societies in Montana and more widely in the U.S.A. He had a long-standing interest in post-graduate education, and helped to promote it throughout the region. A highly principled man, he worked diligently to ensure that education was removed from the political sphere. He was also an early and active proponent of birth control pills, seeing the advantages they could bring for physical and mental health.

Communications with one of the three daughters of Dr Frank McPhail leads us to believe that the diary passed to another of his daughters, Mary Isabel McPhail of Great Falls (1926-2003), who became its sixth holder. After a chemistry degree, Mary spent a few years in New York City in her twenties, rising from secretary to features editor of Glamour magazine, and interviewing, among others, the noted musician Glenn Gould and the actor Gary Cooper. After that, she moved to Los Angeles for a couple of years before returning home to teach in Great Falls.

Mary was a highly regarded teacher of English, specialising in Shakespeare, and taught in Great Falls for more than 35 years. She was also very active in the Great Falls Genealogical Society and researched her Currie and McPhail ancestry in considerable depth and with great rigour. She and her sister visited Kintyre and called on MacKinnon relatives.

We believe that the diary was among a number of items which were sent to a local antique shop in Great Falls. It was there that Dr Burton Schaber found it, and, after a number of years, returned it to its first home in Kintyre, almost 250 years after Malcolm Currie wrote his first entry in it.

Acknowledgements
I am particularly grateful to the following people, without whom the story would be incomplete:
Alec MacKinnon, Cleongart, suggested to me that the McPhail family had emigrated to North America and were worth researching further.
Robin and Jack Allaire supplied much background information about Robin's father, Dr Frank McPhail of Great Falls, Montana.
Janet Barstow, daughter of Dr Frank McPhail, checked the information and interpretation, and provided highly valued proof-reading services.
Burt Schaber found the diary in the antique shop in Great Falls, Montana, and returned it to Kintyre.

Introduction by Mike Maude-Roxby

The article below was written by my grandmother Elizabeth (Bess) Motherwell, wife of William (Bill) McKersie, who lived at Auchinlee, High Askomil. My mother, Elise, was the eldest of three daughters: next in line was Joan ('Noanie') who was followed by Nancy.

Elise was trapped under rubble in the Royal Hotel on the night of the bombing raid on Campbeltown, 6 November 1940. She had a narrow escape, and Bess provides a personal, on-the-spot account of the confused events of that night. Elise was a third officer in the WRNS, having joined in June 1940. She apparently worked in the cypher office of HMS Nimrod at Stronvaar House, but she never divulged much detail about the work or the location and always told me the Official Secrets Acts did not allow it - even half-a-century later.

She married Leycester Maude-Roxby in Longrow Church in August 1944. The reception was in the garden at Auchinlee - a wonderful spot with views of Campbeltown Loch. He was a Lieutenant in the R.N.V.R. and served in corvettes escorting North Atlantic convoys. They both left the services after the War and went to Assam, India, where my father managed a tea garden. I arrived on 6 November 1947, seven years to the day after the bombing described below.

Elise lived a full life after the War, moving in the early 1950s to Dublin, where my brother was born. We both grew up there and my parents lived in Ireland until the end of their lives. Elise carried a scar on her left shin from the bombing and both her eardrums were ruptured by the blast. Despite this, her hearing remained good to the end of her long life. She always told me this was because her eardrums were twenty-five years younger than she was! This rather cryptic remark refers to her being assured by the specialist who examined her that her eardrums would repair themselves naturally: she was born in 1915, so was twenty-five years old in 1940. She was otherwise unscathed.

There remain a few things I would love to find out about this episode: precisely what duties Elise had in Stronvaar House and the whereabouts of an umbrella-stand reputedly made from the nose-cone of the bomb. I visited the Royal Hotel with my brother in 2000 and we spotted it in the hall - indeed, we have a photograph of it. My mother was with us on that trip, but she refused to come into the hotel and sat in the car outside.

Finally, I often think of those others who were killed in the raid and did not, like Elise, have a narrow escape. I hope you enjoy my grandmother's account:

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Copyright belongs to the authors unless otherwise stated.

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