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An exercise on the Scottish Handwriting site actually shows a picture of the 1694 Hearth Tax roll for Argyll with a couple McLeas (each with 1 hearth, incidentally) by chance...
Hearth Tax wrote:My Lord Neil Campbell
his Interest In the paroches
of Killchattan Killbrandan
Ardloing John Mconlea older - - i
John Mconlea younger - - i
Will[iam] Campbell - - - i
Gillbert McEwn - - - i
Hector McLean - - - i
John McDugald - - - i
of Killnes - - - i
I have the original images if anyone wants them.
Kyle=
Kyle S. MacLea Clan Society Life Member; DNA Project Co-Admin New Hampshire, USA kyle-dot-maclea-at-gmail-dot-com
Hi Kyle,
That image of the original document from 1694 with Mconlea is very cool.
One of those Mconleas from Kilbrandon and Kilchattan Parish could be a decendant or kin to Jimmy Watson and Jill Richmond who have ancient Mconlea/Livingstone roots on the Isle of Luing where Kilbrandon and Kilchattan Parish is located. No doubt they will be interested to see these early records. Jill also located for me the 1730 Campbell of Braedlebane tenant list which lists a few residents on the Isle of Luing at that time that call themselves Mconlea also. In the subsequent 1840 they all refer to themselves as Livingstons, Mconlea long since having been discarded. Also a 1751 list of land owners in Argyll at Bachuil we have Mcinlea of Bachuil which probably should have read Maconlea. Certainly on Isle of Luing probably right up to just before the name change well in the 1700's Maconlea was still in use and apparently on the Island of Lismore as well. I used to assume that Maconlea was replaced by Maclea just before the name change but I think there was a bit of flexible overlap and a period just before the name change when perhaps both were used. Stilll despite all the examples we have of the use of Maconlea I dont think somehow we will be changing to Maconlea Livingstone any time soon. Everyone is more familiar with Maclea though I feel a strong sense of loyalty to Maconlea and feel it certainly does have its important place in our clan history as records like those you have located and others indicate.
Yes, the 1694 Hearth Tax document is interesting. On the subject of the McOnlea/Maclea/Livingstone name change: it seems to have started slowly, possibly after the massacre at Dunaverty in 1647, and then accelerated after Culloden. The Ardloing mentioned in the Hearth Tax document is almost certainly Aird Luing which is on the south of the island. This seems to be just an area of higher ground, as the name suggests, and there must have been a settlement there at one time, but it no longer exists.
Hi Jill,
That certainly is one possibility that a name change originated in the 1640's perhaps brought about as one theory goes by a family bond between lowland Baron Sir Jame Livingston of Skirling who was granted lands in Western Argyll from Charles the First and lived briefly on the Isle of Lismore and the Baron of Bachuil residing on the Isle of Lismore. Sir James like the Callendar Livingstons in general were for the most part ardent supporters of the Stuarts for generations and the Baron of Bachuil at the time was likewise.
Perhaps in the early 1640's an alliance was forged between the Sir James and the highland Macleas as Royalists in an increasingly divided Scotland while SIr James lived on the Island of Lismore but I dont see in the 17th century records and early 18th century very much evidence of useage of the Livingstone name prior to the 1750's. There is however some I grant you, but some of it on Islay is due to lowland Livingston colonization I suspect. Why there are Livingstons in Mull before 175O in the records I cannot explain.
Most significant I think is the 1751 Argyll list of landowners which includes the then Baron of Bachuil as Duncan Mcinlea (Maconlea) and not as Duncan Livingstone which one might expect to see if the Barons of Bachuil had adopted the name Livingstone 100 years earlier. Well some may say he used both names at the time and that may well be but we have no evidence of that. In terms of the overwhelming body of 18th century records that survive,to me it is evident that prior to the 1750's the vast majority of our clansmen in Western Argyll went by the McOnlea and McLea or some spelling variant of these two names. There had been a Dunslea type spelling but that had apparently been replaced by Mconlea in the 1700's. Starting in the late 1750's we seem a very significant increase in the parish record entries in Western Argyll with Livingstone or Livingston and a surprising virtual disappearance of Maconlea and Maclea and by the 1760's and 1770's there is little doubt that our people have dropped McOnlea, Mclea for Livingstone, Livingston.
FYI, on Bute, from the records starting in 1691, you see McLea and McOnLea coexisting until 1698, when the last McOnLea appears.
Up until the late 1750s, you also see the name given as "Lea" only, but just a couple of times.
A different writer clearly preferred "MacLea" there (but still used McLea occasionally) from the 1760s until the 1790s, but ONLY for births. Marriages were all McLea in the same time frame.
And of course on Bute, the name change never happened. Maybe those who left Bute while the name change was going on did change if they ended up in such an area where the name change was occurring, but I'm not sure if we have any known examples of that. Would be interesting to see, actually. Would maybe imply a knowledge of a relationship to the families of the same name elsewhere which would be good to know.
Kyle=
Kyle S. MacLea Clan Society Life Member; DNA Project Co-Admin New Hampshire, USA kyle-dot-maclea-at-gmail-dot-com
Hi Kyle,
I wonder what happened to the Macleas associated with the Stonefield family and the Baron Mclea of Lindsaig. Was there small family group associated with that Baron Mclea. I know that Rev. Mclea talks about them in his 1740 Maclea history. Was Rev. Maclea connected to Baron McLea of Lindsaig. Perhaps you can refresh my memory on that one. And can the parish records give us any clues to decreases and increases in settlement of Mcleas from the mid 1600's to 1800's between Lindsaig and Bute.
Random note: I have found mention of the Kirk Session records of Bute being still in existence and containing references well before the start of parish records in 1691. This may be something I need to look into for further McLea history there.
