Male descendants of Reverend Duncan Mclea of Dull

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janetparkes
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2009 4:51 pm

Male descendants of Reverend Duncan Mclea of Dull

Post by janetparkes »

Scotland's People has online the wills, or in fact Testamentary Datives, of two of the surviving three sons of Reverend Duncan Mclea senior of Dull 1681-1749. These belonged to the Reverend Archibald Mclea of Rothesay 1737-1824 and Reverend Duncan Mclea (junior) of Inverchaolain 1739-1785. I have not yet found a TD, let alone a will, for the eldest son, Reverend John Mclea of Lochgoilhead and Kilmorich 1724-1788, which is a pity since he had 5 sons and 2 daughters, though it does rather look as though the sons all died young, save for Archibald b.1784, who may be the same Archibald whose will was proved in London in 1805, leaving everything to his mother, Christian of Park Row, Edinburgh, in which case in 1805 he was in the Navy on His Majesty's ship Magicienne. This in fact fits the family profile because the Reverend John Mclea's second daughter, Christian, was married to a Navy Officer, Duncan Weir, 33 years her senior, by whom she had 3 sons, all of whom predeceased their parents. And the other (elder) daughter, Mary, was married to an Adjutant Surgeon in the Artillery, Peter Venables, by whom she had 2 children before she died prematurely. At a guess, those of the Reverend John's five sons who might have made it to adulthood probably entered the Services. And there it stops unless there are some military records to be found which could progress us..

Anyhow, to turn next to the youngest son, Duncan, his TD is not of much interest. He had a son and a daughter, who are not mentioned, since everything went to his wife, Euphemia Elphinston, the only executor dative, the children being under 10 at the time. It is fairly clear the daughter died young, but the son grew up to be Colonel Duncan Mclea of the Russian Imperial army, who died in Colpina, Russia, in 1828 and is highly likely to have been the grandfather of Nicholai Mikloukho-Maklai, the famous Russian/Australian ethnologist. Indeed, if this can be proved, this branch has the only Mclea descendants of Reverend Duncan Mclea of Dull. Duncan of Inverchaolain was only 45 when he died and his will mentions his farm and the livestock on it, his stipend and not much else. The value was £1965. These were Gentle Folk, educated and well-to-do, but money was clearly a bit tight. Euphemia's will is much more interesting. It appears she took to her bed twenty years before she died in 1817, which is the explanation given for her lack of furniture and very few clothes. From Euphemia's will, it appears that her son Duncan, aged 19 or 20, fathered a son, Charles Gascoigne Mclay. Duncan must have left for Russia not long after. Charles' mother was Anne Rennie but it doesn't look as though Duncan was married to her. Charles himself died in Leeds in 1864. He was married with no children.

Finally, to the middle and cleverest son, the famous Reverend Archibald Mclea of Rothesay. I am afraid I don't have the patience to transcribe the lengthy list of people who owed him money, and it is not entirely clear what they owed him money for. (Very few people owed his brother Duncan any money). His possessions included 16 dozen empty bottles, but if that was his total for some nearly 70 years of adult life, at just under 3 bottles a year he looks to have been fairly abstemious! He also had a house and some nice furniture and, of course, a library. His good fortune was to marry a relatively rich wife, and the good fortune for his nieces and nephews was that they had no children. Isabella Macleod predeceased her husband by about 12 years, and it looks as though her brother William Macleod of Bannatyne, later Lord Bannatyne, then settled an annuity on Archibald which he did not collect. All the same, William Macleod made no quibble and paid out quite a large sum of money to his brother in law's estate after his death, which meant that Archibald left a sum between £5000 and £6000.

The interesting part of all this for us is the list of people who came forward as the "executors dative qua nearest in kin". I think we can probably assume that in 1824 everybody else was dead, but, as I explain below, there is still some small scope for doubt. Anyhow here is the list of descendants in the order they appear:

1. Ann Lyon nee Simpson, 1763-1850, who was the widowed daughter of Mary Mclea 1731-1797, sister of the three Mclea Ministers. Ann lived on Rothesay latterly and I suspect housekept for her uncle after his wife died. She had no children. Her beneficiaries in 1850 were her brother, John Simpson's four children.

No.2 was her first cousin:-
2. Colonel Duncan Mclea of Colpina in Russia, 1773 -1828. He appears to have been Duncan of Dull's only surviving male Mclea grandchild.

No.3 was his first cousin and Ann Lyon's older sister:-
3. Mary Maxwell, nee Simpson, 1761-1825. She was a widow living in Glasgow who had no children and died the following year.

No.4 was the first cousin of the first 3:-
4. Christian Weir, nee Mclea, 1788-1837. She was the youngest and apparently only surviving child of the eldest Mclea Minister, John, and living in Boughton Malherbe in Kent with her retired Navy husband, Duncan Weir.

Nos. 5 and 6 were Christian's niece and nephew, the children of her deceased older sister Mary Mclea and Peter Venables, and first cousins once removed of the others listed here:
5. Catherine Amelia Menzies Venables, 1803-after 1839. She was also remembered in Duncan Weir's will.
6. Thomas Daly Venables, like his sister, living in Drogheda at the time.

Any personal possessions remaining are likely to have come down through either the Venables or the Simpsons line, for as long as those lines continued.

It strikes me as odd that the Venables great niece and great nephew are on the list and not the four children of John Simpson, (Ann Lyon and Mary Maxwell's only brother), who were also great nieces and nephews (as indeed were the Weir children and the Mclea child(ren)) I have not checked to see if John Simpson was dead by 1824 or whether there was some other reason for his failure to show as a next of kin. The Venables are specifically mentioned as being representatives of their dead mother, Christian Mclea, in which case who was representing John Simpson? Possibly his sisters. And in fact the easy answer to this question now comes to mind which is, I suggest, that in 1824 all the other great nieces and nephews were under-age.

I look forward to hearing how much of this ties in with other people's research!

Regards,
Janet
Canadian Livingstone
Posts: 2770
Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:00 pm

Re: Male descendants of Reverend Duncan Mclea of Dull

Post by Canadian Livingstone »

Hi Janet,
Thank-you for that. You obviously have been delving deeply into Reverend Duncan Livingston's family and piecing his family connections together.
Kyle Maclea our North American Clan Comissioner has done quite a bit of research on Mcleas in particular on his own family and their likely connection to the Rothesay, Bute Mcleas. He knows more of this than I though I have gone through alot of the information to keep myself relatively familiar with these Mcleas. Looking at Kyle's family tree recently was a worthwhile effort as all the clues I derived from that experience led to me conclude that he is indeed most likely connected to those Mcleas as he believes. Sometimes it is helpful to have someone take a second look so to speak at one's own family research. Anyways I believe he is well informed about this particular group of Mcleas that resided at Bute. I have every reason as I mentioned earlier to believe that Reverend's Mcleas statement in his 1743 history that one of Baron Mclea of Lindsaig's nephews settled at Rothesay, Bute is likely accurate and a likely explanation where at least some of the Bute Mcleas came from. Unless someone comes up a better explanation I think we have to consider the possibility that those Rothesay Mcleas or least a good percentage of them are connected to the old Lindsaig family and those who lived in the neighbouring parishes of Eastern Argyll. Anyways for what its worth ,and I am not a Bute Mclea expert by any means, that is my take on it.

regards,

Donald
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