Question...from a newbie

[cessna152towser]

First of all

My surname is Cunningham and over the past few years I have been trying to find other relatives on my father's side. Some siblings of my great grandfather and great great grandfather disappeared from Scottish census records in the mid eighteen hundreds and there are no death records for them in Scotland. I can only assume they emigrated to Canada or USA. I did manage to ascertain that a sibling of a great-great-great grandmother emigrated to Canada with her husband in 1806.
My mother's father's family were from Northern Ireland, came to Scotland about 1880 and then went to Canada about 1905. It must be something in the Canadian water but grandfather's brothers' families in Canada keep multiplying with every generation, whereas grandfather who stayed behind in Scotland produced five children from whom there were only two grandchildren and one great grandchild, so the Scottish family has died out. Bear in mind these are families who lived in the Scottish lowlands so emigration to Canada must have been a matter of choice, seeking new opportunities, and nothing to do with the Highland clearances.
As my mother's maiden name is an Irish one, I joined my father's clan and am now a Clan Cunningham Armiger in Scotland and also Scotland Regional Secretary to Clan Cunningham International. I have met many good friends through CCI but have not yet established any blood relationships. As you probably know, many of the Cunningham descendents of the Earls of Glencairn owned farms in Ayrshire and Renfrewshire and it was common practice for farm workers to adopt the surname of their employer/landlord so most of us Cunninghams are probably descended from common people rather than from the Earls.
By the way my father also served in the Royal Air Force. He was a mechanic with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, based at Gananoque Ontario and later at Innisfail Alberta. Following a head injury in 1943, the RAF decided they could use him in salvage and repair work back home and he was shipped back to Britain.