This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: McKay, Prather Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Fi.2ADE/1154.1.1.1 Message Board Post: When my dad was doing research, he speculated that our McKays may have been McGees at some time or something similar sounding. My uncle had found a trail of McKays back to Virginia and Scotland, but I think there was a gap there between the Shenandoah valley and southern Indiana. I have some miscellaneous stuff that my uncle left me that shows a map of a landgrant to "Clark" which I presume is George Rogers Clark as partial payment for military service. The grant included Madison county as well as that southeastern tip of Indiana. I'm not well versed in Indiana history, so someone else will be a better source of history. Geographically, this area is just downstream of Cincinnati and upriver from Louisville. I believe that it was also a bit upriver from Carrollton, Ky. which is at the mouth of the Kentucky River. There are many land and water routes your ancestors may have taken to get to the area and it sounds like they were migrating from the river or through the Cumberland Gap and Kentucky. It depends on where they originated. I know that Prather is a common name in Kentucky history especially the late 1700's and the early 1800's in Bourbon county. I looked at a line of Prather several years back that I thought were related, but weren't. Contact me at [email protected] if those folks are kin to you. Madison is also a Kentucky county and one of the earliest of the 120 counties.