I came across and did download the Free PDF book "McColls who are you" which has *dozens of entries for 'Livingston' included and may help locate some missing ancestors, the address I used was from the web (and I can`t recall it) but there is a free copy on "Family Search" which can be quickly searched. The main focus of the book is Appin Scotland but also includes immigrants from there as well.
https://www.familysearch.org/library/bo ... o?offset=2
an excerpt from the book -
LIVINGSTONS of Ballachulish
There are two distinct branches of the family, more or less nearly
related - the Livingstones of Bachuill in Lismore, and those of
hereditary keepers of the Royal Herdsman of Etive. The Stewarts
of Appin fostered with the Livingstones of Benderloch and Lismore
and a marriage connection between them made the tie still
closer.
The Macleays of Appin, a small sept of the Stewarts of Appin,
sometimes anglicised their name as Livingstone. There is, of
course, no etlymological connection between Livingston and
Macleay but there is a slight resemblance in Gaelic of the initial
part of the name, as well as the fact of the Livingstones having
land on the Highland frontier, and that caused the equation of
the one name with the other.
The Mac-an-Leighs (anglicised MacLeay) are descended from the
famous physicians of the Isles, the hereditary Royal Physicians
whose name was Beaton in Mull, MacBeth in Islay and it is also
known as Bethune and phonetically anglicised as MvVean from
MacBheathain. This is a striking example of the habit of adopting
in English a name that has not the remotest connection with the
Gaelic one, and which completely conceals the identity of the
Gaelic origin. It is not known, even by the family, when or how
the name of Livingstone was adopted.
The tradition of the nine Johns, from whom descended the
famous explorer and missionary Dr. David Livingstone, is as follows:
'One day in the first half of the 15th centruy, two men were
cutting wood at Ardmaddy in Nether Lorn. The men quarrelled
and John MacLeay accidentally struck his neighbour a fatal blow.
John fled for his life and disappeared - nobody knew where.
Sometime afterwards, a Stewart hunting party was out on the side
of Ben Bheithir where they sighted and stalked a hairy creature
which turned out to be a naked, hairy, half-crazed human being
living among the cattle in this wild glen.
He was, of course, John MacLeay. The Stewarts had him clothed
and made him a house servant. His fellow servants named him
"the hairy beast". He married one of the servant maids and lived
in the neighbourhood of Ballachulish for some years until he was
killed near Ballachulish Ferry by a gallopping horseman who had
tracked him down and avenged the accidental killing.
Thereafter, eight generations of John MacLeays lived at
Ballachulish and for many years these descendants of the first
John MacLeay were known as "the offspring of the hairy beast".
The ninth John had five sons - Hugh, Neil, Donald, John and
Angus. This ninth John with two of his sons Neil and Donald
followed the Chief of Clan Stewart of Appin in 1745 and was killed
at Culloden in 1746.
Livingston ancestors mentioned in a book
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