MacDonald or Gillis from Isle of Lewis - circa 1804

[Nathan]

Just a quick note... Obituaries often have wrong information in them, they are a clue, not gospel. The bereft, neighbors, and pastors are not reliable sources. When you see in records such as ship manifests, other travel records and sometimes church documents that someone was from "somewhere" it might not be that they were born there or their family was from there... it might mean where they JUST came from. This is most common on ship records.

I am just starting to learn about Scottish research, oh boy, lots to learn!

Fair enough and thanks for sharing what you've learned. The thing is, I'm not going solely based on an obituary. I'm basing this on:

A) My family's oral and written tradition of where we come from. Malcolm's grandson and Angus' son, Malcolm, wrote a fairly detailed family history which was transcribed and added to by father's aunt and circulated through the family.
B) The grave stone that clearly says, "A Native of Lewis, Scotland". They could have put anything on the gravestone but chose to etch in stone that he was a proud son of Lewis.
C) The obituary which has been handed down from generation to generation.
D) Conversations with elderly members of the community who remember some of these people and the Lewis dialect of Gaidhlig they spoke.

Everything fits together. Angus converted to Catholicism the year after he arrived in Canada. If he arrived from Barra for example, he likely would have already been Roman Catholic.

That said, if he was 65 and not 64, that would be conceivable.

After years of research, we've filled in many branches of the tree besides the paternal line that has been handed down. Unfortunately, it's that jump across the pond that's been elusive. I'll get there.

[Elizabeth]

Good luck Nathan, my comment was more generalized than pointing at you. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

If you have not done the Autosomal DNA test yet you should consider it. The field is new but is exploding with possibilities and hopefully soon technology will catch up to where we know it is going. Can't wait till the databases include more over the pond people, I'm patiently (not really!) waiting.

[xman]

After years of research, we've filled in many branches of the tree besides the paternal line that has been handed down. Unfortunately, it's that jump across the pond that's been elusive. I'll get there.

O my brother here you may be more prophetic than you mean to be. How many years have gone by and what efforts have been put forward by previous generations? It is my feeling that until we have a man on the ground in Lewis with as much invested as an actual descendant has and speaks the language to check the old ships manifests, church parish records etc., until then I believe we will make no further progress. Sorry for pointing fingers.