INDEX CLEARINGHOUSE MAILING LIST LINKS HOME
Click here for links to other Gilchrist websites...
My maiden name is Gilchrist and I have recently started trying to trace my family history. My info tells me my Gilchrists followed the same migration route as yours. Although I have been unable to link it to your family tree, many of the names are the same. I find it hard to believe this is just a coincidence. Maybe you have some additional info that would help, I would appreciate any assistance and would be glad to share the little info I have. My grandfather was William Gilchrist, his father was Archibald (Archie) Gilchrist b 1871 and his Father was John Gilchrist (no birth Date) married to Annie Currie, (we think he was married before). All have been traced back to the Simcoe and Victoria Counties of Ontario.
The Gilchrist comes from my mother's mother's family. We trace our family back to John Gilchrist who married Effie McMillan in Campbeltown, Kintyre, Scotland on 12 Feb 1770 and came (with her parents) to North Carolina. They had 9 children. I am descended from their third child, second daughter, Margaret. This is all documented. John fought in the Revolution and is my prime ancestor for the DAR. Maybe we are related! Is this the type of information you can use on your web pages? I'm interested in finding other Gilchrist folks.
My branch of the family came to upstate New York by way of Ireland, shortly after the Revolutionary War. Since they quickly married into established Scottish families, it's safe to assume they retained their "Scottishness" during what ever time they spent in Ireland (as part of Ulster Plantation, probably). I know nothing about our family prior to Thomas Gilchrist's wedding day in County Monaghan in 1795, followed almost immediately by the immigration of he and his wife to America. We also always assumed allegiance with the Maclachlans due to proximity of the clan holding and northern Ireland... plus they've got a cooler Tartan than the Olgilvies. My family eventually moved to Wisconsin and then to Iowa. (though I now live in Minneapolis, I'll always be an Iowan) Up until my father (who is an attorney) the family occupation was farming.
My great-grandfather William Thomas was the only surviving male descendant. He was the eldest of the six children, born 27/3/1860 in Halifax. He married Abigail Jane Gray (b. 5/l/1860) and they had five children before he died on 9/4/1916 of pneumonia. He was a friendly, out-going person, a brick-layer and stonemason. All of William Thomas' children were born in Poplar Hill, in Pictou County, between River John and Scotsburn. The eldest was Christina, who married Howard V. Powell and lives in Pictou. Then came Thomas Gray, a teacher who was lost in action in W.W.I; Donald Robert, another educator who served in and survived both wars, and finally died in 1962 at the age of 66; Alexander McRae, who came out of W.W.I with a metal plate in his head and spent the balance of his life in military hospitals; and my grandfather William Sidney, who was a decorated medical officer during W.W.II and a renowned medical missionary in Angola the rest of his life. My immediate family tree is irrelevant here. But I wish I knew what became of my great-great-granduncles in Lesmahagow...
Click for Clearinghouse Index...
Click for previous Clearinghouse page...
Click for next Clearinghouse page...
INDEX CLEARINGHOUSE MAILING LIST LINKS HOME