Your quite right Don, most did go to Canada. In fact, my line of McDonalds were from Leek and John McDonald of Leek with his brothers Allan & Alexander were the first to leave en-masse on the Pearl in the late 1700's. My family were left in Leek and prior to them disappearing from there around 1850, at least two of them came to Australia. These are the ones from whom I descended (Hugh & Duncan McDonnell). There are of course heaps of McDonalds from Glengarry but the ruling family of Lord McDonald of Glengarry would have had only one formal line of descent, the eldest son of the eldest son etc. This is the person to whom I was referring. The official seat of the McDonalds in Glengarry was I believe at Invergarry and this was the Colonel's home until his death. When his eldest son (whoever he was) sold off the family lands and migrated to Australia, he would have bought the formal line of descent with him. I am not laying any claim to the line, rather I am interested in knowing why my family came to Australia rather than going with the mob to Canada. Current thoughts are that they may have followed in the footsteps of the Glengarry to Australia circa 1830-1840 rather than those who went to Canada much earlier. I know that Hugh & Duncan were assisted to migrate to Australia but this assistance does not appear to have been from the HIES. The assisted passage suggests someone else paid for their passage. As we didn't have any relatives to my knowledge - perhaps the Glengarry footed the bill to provide labor on his Australian holdings wherever thay may have neen. David Port Fairy DMacdon152@aol.com wrote: > I wouldn't bet either way where the Glengarry Macdonald line is the thickest, > but my ggf, one Donald Roy McDonald born about 1799-1800, told his parish > priest in Alexandria, Ontario, Canada, that he was from Glengarry in > Scotland. His brother, Kenneth, also resided there, and he married a Anne > McDonnell, also supposedly from Glengarry, SCT. There are so many McDonald, > MacDonald, McDonell, MacDonnel, (and the umpteen other spellings) in Canada, > coupled with the fact that the county was named Glengarry, that I would > suspect the majority went west rather than south. > Don