Having read the list entries for a few months I felt it was time to get involved. My Bute connection is a bit tenuous. Family tradition always stated " they came from Bute orginally" but by the time I started on family history, I was 62 and there was nobody left to ask. However, I finally located [almost] our Buteman. My GGGgrandfather Archibald McKirdy born about 1790-1795 on Bute, and married to Margaret McDougall in Glasgow on 15/12/1815. A few snippets show him living in 1. Grahamstown, the legendary village under Glasgow's Central Station, when daughter Margaret was born c1820. 2. North Woodside Road, Glasgow, when he purchased 2 plots in the Southern Necropolis, in June 1845 - I still have the deeds. 3. Oakbank, Glasgow, in the burial record on 'unnamed McKirdy' b.and d. on 29/03/1849. Although he and Margaret are shown as parents, 'I hae ma doots' He does not appear in the 1851 Census index as far as I can see, and as some of the Southern Necropolis records from around that time are in poor condition he may already be in there. My mother's family are descended via his son John, who was born in Glasgow on 30/03/1819, and married an Ann Vance of Maybole in Gorbals on 16/07/1841. I have identified 12 children so far, but only 2 reaching adulthood and the repetition of given names suggests a worse than average infant mortality rate. Robert McKirdy [1852-1908], the known surviving son married a Margaret Miller in 1876. Their luck with offspring continued, 3 died young, John [1885-1917] died at Ieper, but my grandfather Archibald made it to 87,however both produced daughters and the male line fizzled out. An Australian contact last year suggested that he might have been the son of a Robert McKirdy schoolmaster at Birgiedale Crieff but added that he had just sold his house and would be 'a nomad for a year' - honest !! Independently I found the same names at Quochag Muir about the same time so it's possible -- Over to your listers. Ross Holmes [ Glasgow ]