When I started to research the McKinnon side of my family in
1999, the easiest way to access information about them was a set of CDs of the
1881 Census issued by the Church of Latter Day Saints. Here I found my great grandmother
and all her siblings working as house servants (the girls) or farm servants
(the boys). Meanwhile her parents John
Mckinnon and Mary Barron were at home in Petty, Inverness-shire looking after 3
illegitimate grandchildren.
The McKinnon (or MacKinnon) family originated on the islands
of Mull, Coll, and Tiree n the Hebrides and later Skye and Rum. For hundreds of years the MacKinnons held
offices of importance in both the military and civil administrations of the
Isles. A MacKinnon chief was the marshal of the island fleet that transported
Robert Bruce and his army at the start of the campaign that ended at
Bannockburn in 1314. MacKinnon chiefs were respected members of the Council of
the Isles and from 1357 until 1498 the MacKinnon clan supplied the abbots and
priors for the monastery on Iona.
After the Act of
Union between England and Scotland, Clan MacKinnon supported the Jacobite cause
especially in 1715 and 1745. Following those failed uprisings, the clan members were
reduced to poverty. Their land was sold off and many emigrated. The Highland
Clearances, moving people to make room for sheep, caused more McKinnons to
scatter round the globe.
The first McKinnon we can trace in our family is William
MacKinnon, a weaver, living in Stronaba, Kilmonivaig, Invernesshire. He and his wife, Ann Cameron had two
children, Christian (female) and John MacKinnon. By 1841 William had died and
Ann McKinnon (Cameron) was in misery (on charity). In 1851 she was listed as a
parish pauper. Later that year John, a labourer, married Mary Barron, a servant
maid working at Glenfintaig House, in Kilmonivaig.
John McKinnon and his wife Mary, who spoke Gaelic and English, soon moved to Elgin, Moray where their first 2 children were born, but by 1854 when their son William McKinnon was born, they were living in the village of Petty on the edge of the Moray Firth near to the town of Inverness. John worked as a railway surfaceman until he died of a heart attack aged 82. His wife Mary Barron died 8 years later in Inverness and was buried at Tomnahurich Cemetery in Inverness. Of the 10 children of John McKinnon and Mary Barron, my great grandmother Eliza was their 6th child.