Firstly , thank you to Peter, Madeleine and Alistair. I' ll be in Bute for a few days in May so I am gleaning as much background info as I can get before I get there so I appreciate the help. Madeleine I suspect that any connection between the McKinlay in your family tree and mine would predate the start of parish records in the 1690s although I would be pleased to be corrected. One of the problems I have is that in the 150 years of records from the 1690s until my gg grandfather emigrated there are some 53 Janet McKs of whom I can only track a relationship to of about 3. There was a Mckinlay/Mckinlay marriage in 1880 but there are too few details to reliably form a good ancestral line there. The same, sadly applies I think Alistair to the letters that you have with reference to John McKinlay.(46 of them in the archives) Although my ggg grandfather was a councillor in Rothesay, the rest of the information does not seem to fit. He was a merchant and bussmaster and although he travelled widely from the north of Scotland to the north of England, was not resident anywhere else nor a comptroller of customs. Appreciate the effort all the same Regards Bill McKinlay