This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: fireflifourtyfour Surnames: MacLean, McLean, Johnson, Johnston, Bowdridge, Billard, Spencer Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.canada.novascotia.pictou/3896.1.1.2.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Thank you for the time you took to reply and the information you've offered. It's clear you've done some significant work on your history and I hope your success in that endeavor will continue. In the last few months I've learned quite a few things about my own lines and I'm relatively certain that the information you offer really doesn't apply to my lines in any substantial way. There may, of course be genetic connections given the exodus from the Provinces to New England in that era. The failing of the lumber industry drove many from Pictou after all. However, in the lines I'm researching, there were some very, very specific family (vs community/hearsay) connections that I've been able to identify. The connection between my family and the islands is the weakest of all my MacLean/McLean connections. These Maclean/Mclean lines are the lines I've focused "most" of my research on. I do not have great genealogical interest in the islands per se. Those island lines conce! rn other families that are somewhat vaguely associated with but not necessarily related to my MacLeans. I have discovered that I descend from not one line of Macleans but apparently from three and the island line is the most distant. These folks in the Magdalene's were not people my grandfather or his immediate family would have corresponded with often if at all (until after his marriage to my grandmother) and it is much more likely that the combination of my grandfather having great grandparents based in Newport RI as well as great Uncles involved in the NS/NFLD/Newport shipping triangle brought him the news of work in RI. His great maternal grandmother hailed from a Newport family that was present in RI in the pre-Revolutionary era. As I may have mentioned on this forum (or another, I've lost track now) when my grandfather arrived in RI he worked with and for exclusively "Scots" and it is my understanding that it took an "introduction" of sorts and a test of heritage to be included in this group. It was a closed circle of sorts and in the years hence, I've met others who were part of it (sometimes in the strangest places, I'm a nurse and one of them wound up being a patient of mine..smile.) So, please forgive the cliche',but the connections were a bit "clannish"...to the point that some of the characteristics of it kept old clan and sept associations that were once traditional in much earlier eras on the Inner and Outer Hebrides. (I have lines from both the inner and outer Hebrides.) A masonic association also figures quite prominently into this history too. My grandmother (his wife, the newfie) was actually quite French but she never knew it during her lifetime. This was information I uncovered when I traced her family back to France, much to my mother's (her daughter) surprise. I have since discovered that my grandmother's brother was my only connection to the Magdalenes and apparently it was marriage that brought him there. There is no lengthy history of my family in the Magdalenes or on Cape Breton though there is signifcant history of my maternal grandmother's family in Newfoundland as she was descended from the "Old Frenchman". I haven't yet "proven" it but I do believe I will find my great great great grandfather MacLean coming in on a ship into Quebec. That is the current focus of my research at any rate. One of my Maclean lines I believe emigrated directly from Harris to NFLD though. Of note, I find that the decision to "stay" in RI was frowned upon by most of the more immediate relatives I've documented in NS. That little mystery is something I hope to flesh out very soon. Apparently, it is related to some sort of racial or heritage discrimination but I do not have more than oral family history to guide me at the moment. The history you report might well figure into the history of my husband's family though. He is French Canadian with a healthy helping of Blackfoot.(1/8) He has a great great great grandfather (Berube) who built the first windmill in Canada too. Grin. Someday I'll get around to doing his full maternal/paternal tree but for now, if the surname Hotin is one you are interested in, well, perhaps we can chat. That is the only I am currently collecting information on from his side because basically it's so hard to research. I've only gotten back about four generations. The rest of his family names are well documented and rather easy to trace so long as I can translate French...grin. Again, please let me reiterate how much I appreciate your reply. Good hunting to you. Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.