My parents, Percy Llewellyn Davies and Edith McDougall were married in the Glasgow University Chapel on the 18^th July 1935. Their marriage brought the Welsh, Davies, and the Scottish, McDougall, families together. The Davies family history has been extensively researched by my cousin, Ron Davies, and his web database provides a vivid account of the Welsh side of my family. I have tried to produce a record of my Scottish family and in this I have relied heavily on research carried out by my cousin Helene Grace MacDougall from Charlotte, North Carolina.

My Scottish grandparents, Peter Blackhall McDougall and Grace Cram Cameron were married in 1892 in the manse of the church in Church Street, Partick, Glasgow, not a stone’s throw from where my parents were married 43 years later.

Grace Cram Cameron

My maternal grandmother, Grace Cram Cameron, was born on the 6^th March 1866 at 4pm, in the Whins of Milton, a small village to the south east of Stirling, which has now been incorporated into the city of Stirling. She was the fifth of seven children. My mother, Edith McDougall, stated that she, Edith, was the seventh child of the seventh child and had second sight. So far we have only been able to confirm that she was the seventh child of the fifth child! We have more work to do here. At the time of her marriage Grace was 26 years old and working as a domestic servant/cook at 4 Dundonald Road, Kelvinside, Glasgow. She died at home in Hunters Quay on the 30^th April 1948 at the age of 82.

I must have met her in 1946 and 1947 on our holidays to Hunters Quay, but my memory has been corrupted by the cine films we have of her, so I can’t work out what is a real memory or not. In her later years she was blind but not totally blind as she was able to walk about quite freely. She wore dark glasses and I was a little frightened of her. I don’t know what the eye condition she had was, but both my brother and I suffer from Glaucoma which is a hereditary condition.

Grace Cram Cameron’s parents, Angus Cameron and Mary Cram were married in Glendevon Church in January 1851, Angus was 26 and Mary was 16. Their first child, James, was born in February 1851 – enough said!

Mary Cram was the daughter of James Cram and Anne Mcleish. The Crams were and still are farmers working out of Wester Glensherup farm off Glen Devon in Perthshire. Both the Crams and the McLeishs are long established families in the Glen Devon area and whilst we have not gone back very far with their family trees it should not be too difficult to do so.

In sharp contrast we have been unable to trace any official records for Angus Cameron prior to his marriage in 1851. The census records for 1851, 1861, 1881 and 1891 together with his death certificate are all that we have been able to find. There is no trace him or his family in the 1871 census.

1)                The 1851 census, carried out on 31^st March, gives his age as 26 and that he was born on Lismore

2)                The 1861 census carried out on 7^th April ,gives his age as 37 and that he was born at ‘Kingailoch Argylleshire’ (sic) – Kingairloch Argyllshire perhaps!

3)                The 1881 census carried out on 3rd April, gives his age as 57 and that his place of birth was N.(ot) K.(nown). Argyll

4)                The 1891 census carried out on 6^th April, gives his age as 67 and that his place of birth was Lismore Argyllshire

5)                He died on the 23^rd May 1891 and his age on the death certificate was given as 70 and his parents as Donald Cameron and Christina McLean.

If he was born between 31^st March and 3^rd April, then (1), (2), (3) and (4) all suggest that he was born in 1824 and it only leaves the age at death as the odd one out as that suggests he was born in 1820/21. Where he was born is also far from clear: Lismore is an island between the Morvern Peninsula and Oban, while Kingairloch is on the east side of the Morvern Peninsula.

Angus Cameon’s death certificate gives his parents as Donald Cameron and Christina McLean. I think we can take this as being accurate as he and Mary Cram named one of their children Christina McLean. Unfortunately, as yet we have not found any of their children called Donald. If we assume that Donald Cameron and Christina McLean are Angus’s parents then we have been able to trace them in the Jo Currie database of Mull family names to living at Ockle. Strontian, Argyllshire. Ockle is on the south side of the Morvern Peninsula. Together with the mention of Lismore and Kingairloch we can be reasonably certain that Angus was born and lived his early years somewhere on the Morvern Peninsula or on the island of Lismore. Angus’s death certificate gives his father’s occupation as “Joiner Journeyman”, so perhaps the family moved about the area and were not based for long in any one place. Who knows!

The Jo Currie database in the Mull Museum suggests that Donald was born about 1795 and that he died in 1866 and that Christina was married about 1820 at Ockle, Strontian presumably to Donald although this is not stated in the database. I have been unable to confirm any of this data in any of the official records.

As with his family history we are left to speculate why Angus should end up in Glen Devon. We can assume that he was the father of Angus Cameron born in 1851, and that therefore he must have been working in the Glen Devon area as a shepherd for at least 9 months before. It was not unusual for farms in the east of Scotland to employ seasonal workers from the Highlands to bring in the harvest and to dig up the potatoes, but he must have been employed as a permanent shepherd. We can only speculate that the combined effects of the Clearances and the potato famines drove him out of Argyll. We can speculate again that the historical drove roads from the west would bring him to Crieff and onwards to Glen Devon.

We are left with far too many unanswered questions and it is difficult to see where we can now find out the answers to them.