The Charts of Arnold McNaughton

                                                by Thomas R. Holme

After Arnold McNaughton published his 1955 book he continued to gather genealogical information necessitating annual updates, the first one appearing in December of 1956. The chart on the right appeared in his fifth update, issued in December of 1960. By this time Arnold had realized that our line does not not descend from the son of the last chief, John MacNauchtan, but instead from the last chief's uncle who bore the same name. You will notice something very interesting -- in this chart Arnold has the father of Thomas and Malcolm as the grandchildren of the John MacNauchtan who is the brother of Chief Alexander MacNauchtan and son of Chief Malcolm MacNauchtan. The grandchildren! He has placed another John MacNauchtan in between with the words "one of several children who is evidently the connecting link with Our Family Tree". That is exactly the way the generations should run. Arnold had no proof in 1960 of this. It was just an excellent educated guess on his part. Since he knew from family stories that have been handed down to us that Thomas and Malcolm were both born in Dunderave Castle and that their father was named John MacNauchtan. But their father could not be the son of Chief Malcolm because Chief Malcolm died no later than 1649 at which time his son John was at least ten years old, which means John would have been far too old to be the father of Thomas and Malcolm, whose grandson Donald was born in 1778. So there had to be a generation between John the son of Chief Malcolm and Thomas and Malcolm who were born in Dunderave. That missing generation would be their father, also named John MacNauchtan. I wish Arnold McNaughton were alive today to see the proof we have found today, in the two volume set of books THE PROCEEDINGS OF SCOTTISH ESTATES 1689-1690 in which on page 91 of the second volume it is mentioned that the uncle of the last chief, John MacNauchtan, and his two sons were brought up on charges for their part in the rebellion. They fought at Killiecrankie. Arnold McNaughton never had occasion to discover that piece of information, which as far as I know is the only piece in existance which proves the uncle of the last chief had sons. An educated guess was the best Arnold could do. It was logical, and it was accurate. But it appears that there may have been some pressure upon Arnold McNaughton to eliminate this guesswork and reduce his tree simply to the generations of individuals that were positively known at that time. I say this because if you look at the next chart, which appeared fifteen years later in his 1975 book, you will see that Arnold has eliminated the middle generation. In the 1975 chart he has Thomas and Malcolm being the sons directly of John MacNauchtan, the son of Chief Malcolm. Which is simply impossible. What a curious situation! -To have made an accurate guess in 1960 and then fifteen years later to have returned to an inaccuracy.

Figuring out how our family tree stemmed from the chiefs of clan McNaughton was no easy task fifty years ago, not even for Arnold McNaughton, one of the pre-eminent royal genealogists of the world. It is still a daunting task today. In the 1940's there were two very intelligent men who were busily tracing the history and lineage of the McNaughton chiefs. Both of them published their books in the same year, 1951. V.V.McNitt wrote THE MACNAUCHTAN SAGA and Angus Macnaghten wrote THE CHIEFS OF CLAN MACNACHTAN AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. Neither book mentions our line. Apparently neither McNitt nor Macnaghten were aware of our line. And in the little Quebec town of Hemmingford Quebec, the McNaughtons of our line who lived there were equally unaware of the McNaughton histories and genealogies being compiled by scholars elsewhere in the world. In 1953 Dr. Donalda McFee was the matriarch historian genealogist of our family, 90 years old and still going strong. Her mother was Catherine McNaughton, born in Inverness Scotland and her grandfather was Donald McNaughton, "the lame school teacher of Loch Lochy". Donald's second wife, Anna Cameron lived till 1893, so Donalda knew Anna for the first thirty years of her life. It was Anna Cameron and her husband Donald McNaughton who drew up the tree which traces our line back to John MacNauchtan's two sons, Thomas and Malcolm, who were born in Dunderave castle. John MacNauchtan was Donalda's great great great grandfather. Donalda was a doctor of philosophy. It was Donalda and her two spinster sisters, who were both also doctors, one of music, the other of medicine, who instilled the family genealogy in Arnold McNaughton. The tree of our line as they knew it is basically correct. However, after 250 years it had become confused as to who John MacNauchtan was. Donalda and other antiquarians in the family assumed he was John MacNauchtan, the last chief of the clan. And so, that is what Arnold wrote in his first book in 1954-55. But as Arnold continued his research and read THE MACNAUCHTAN SAGA he realized that our line actually descends from John MacNauchtan, the uncle of the last chief.

The chart on the left is from Arnold's 1975-77 book. As I mentioned, you will notice that Arnold has left out the middle generation. The chart no longer makes sense chronologically. There is actually one other error here, a common one among McNaughton genealogists of that time period, and that is that Shane Dhu was the son of John McNaughton and Ann MacLean. Shane Dhu was actually born nearly a century earlier. I will be going into that later.

One other mistake in this chart on the left is Jean de la Coeur MacNauchtan, listed as the daughter of John, the customs officer at Anstruther. Arnold got that from THE MACNAUCHTAN SAGA, which in turn got it from Archibald Campbell's 1885 book RECORDS OF ARGYLL. But modern scholarship by Duncan McNaughton and Mathew Cock and others have almost absolutely disproven this rather interesting and somewhat beautiful story. Well, at least it has been proven that it did not happen to the John the customs officer, but it could have happened to another John MacNauchtan of Dunderave. Because there were at least 3 men, and possibly 4, named John McNauchtan living in Dunderave castle during the last decades of the sixteen hundreds and the first decades of the seventeen hundreds: John the last chief, his son John the customs officer at Anstruther, John the great uncle who fought at Killiecrankie, and the eldest son of the uncle, also named John, our ancestor.

The 1975 Chart of the generations that lead to us...

You will notice that this chart also says that Thomas and Malcolm are the grandsons of Chief Malcolm MacNauchtan rather than the great-grandsons. Anyone attempting to create an accurate timeline would become very frazzeled with this chart. On top of that there is one or two other errors which we shall get into momentarily.

Notice that Malcolm McNaughton is said to have died in Balameneck. The location of that town elluded many of us for some time. (especially us Americans searching with our noses to old maps). Balmenoch (As it is spelled today) is on the the banks of the river Lyon, about seven miles west of Fortingall. Or about 2 miles east of Innerwick and the Bridge of Balgie. MAP. Many of us had previously thought Balmenoch was on the shores of Loch Awe, which was difficult to understand, since that area is Campbell country and we have to wonder how Malcolm could have lived there peacefully. Everything makes much more sense now that we know Balmenoch is on the river Lyon, seven miles west of Fortingall. 

Of significant interest to me is that the chart states that Thomas McNaughton died in Glen Lyon before 1750. His son Duncan would presumably be a very young child at that time. No other child is mentioned for Thomas. It seems likely there were none, that Thomas was a young father, had one son, and then died young, leaving his wife to care for their son. There is a piece of the family puzzle staring right at us if we know our history at all. The terrible Battle of Culloden took place in 1746. Glen Lyon was the gathering place for the Athole brigade. I can not imagine any way that Thomas McNaughton might not have been engaged in that battle. He could not have ignored the call to arms. Since the chart says he died in Glen Lyon before 1750, and he would have been about 36 years old if he were born in 1715 in Dunderave castle, it seems likely to me that he did of his wounds in Glen Lyon. Scotsmen did not normally die young in those days in any other way. His wife would have been a young widow then, and would have taken her child Duncan to live with the family of Thomas' brother Malcolm. There, Duncan would have grown up with his first cousin Katherine, who he eventually married.

Notice what the chart says about Duncan McNaughton: "died at Greenfield, Scotland about 1775." But his first child was born in 1776 and there were five more born afterwards. So Duncan obviously didn't die before his children were born. I wish Arnold were alive to give us the year he meant to give us for Duncan's death whatever it was. But he is not. My feeling is that Arnold is inferring that Duncan died young leaving his wife Katherine with a brood of children to raise on her own, so I figure the year of Duncan's death should be around 1785. The Chart says Duncan's father Thomas died before 1750. So with Duncan and Thomas both being dead there would not be much Katherine could do except go with her children to live in her father Malcolm's home.

Another mistake: notice Katherine's brother, Donald, born in 1767 and died Apr 25, 1858 in Hemmingford. Now look at Katherine's son Donald, born in 1776 and died in April of 1858. Quite a coincidence, aye? This first caught my eye when I was searching parish records for a birth record for Katherine. Knowing she was married a year or two before the birth of her first child, or say 1774, I was searching for a birth record around 1750 in the area of Glen Lyon, Perth, since that is where Thomas died and we might safely predict that the Dunderave McNaughtons moved to Glen Lyon after leaving Dunderave. I found parish record that made total sense: Katherine McNaughten, born July 13, 1751 in Killin, Perth to Malcolm and Christen. Then I noticed on this chart of Arnold's that Katherine's brother Donald supposedly was born in 1767-- sixteen years after her. This seemed a bit odd. Plus it really stretched the time line. Malcolm would sure have been an old man when he sired Donald. I wrote to our cousin Donald Briggs about it. He came back with the thought that it seemed so odd that both Donalds died in April of 1858 -- and their birth years were the reverse of each other, one being 76 and the other being 67. Maybe Katherine didn't have a brother named Donald at all! Maybe it was a mistake in transcription when Arnold was copying over the notes of Donalda McFee! So Donald Briggs made it a point to go to Hemmingford and look in the family cemetary to see if there were two tombstones for men who were both named Donald McNaughton and who both died in April of 1858. He only found one. So I am of the opinion that Malcolm only had 3 children, not 4. Either that, or Malcolm did have a son named Donald, but his information is unknown to us. His birth year would surely be closer to Kett's, and he may have married, and lived and died in Scotland.

The day I discovered the parish record for the marriage of Duncan and Katherine was a milestone. They were married December 8, 1772 in Fortingal, Perth. That is very close to Killin, Perth where Katherine was born. Notice that I am spelling her name with a K now instead of a C. That is because the parish records for her birth and for her marriage both spell her name with a K. One of them refers to her as "Kett". Isn't that a beautiful nickname?

I also found many other parish records for the births and marriages of these relatives. Click Here to see the Parish Records.

Click on this link to see the Parish Records.

Click Here to read about the differences in the various McNaughton chronologies and histories.

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I have created a McNaughton Genealogical Tree from the time of Robert Bruce to the modern age, covering all the lineages and showing what I believe to be the correct roots of Shane Dhu and also of the descendants of John MacNauchtan, uncle of the last chief of the clan:

....MCNAUGHTON GENEALOGICAL CHART FROM THE TIME OF ROBERT BRUCE..... by Thomas R. Holme