Hello Dave (and the List) Thanks for your response to my posting about John Prebble's book "The Highland Clearences" and his reference there to Glengarry, which started all this. Prebble has a book "Mutiny", is this the book you refer to Dave for further reading? I can make no claim to being a Highlander. None of my ancestors came from the region. It's my wife's father's family, the Kennedys of Brackletter, who come from Brae Lochaber. How ever I claim spiritual connection through my full given name, Robert MacGregor Blackburn. I am called Greg, (and I prefer this) because there are too many other Roberts in the family. I think I am right to believe that the MacGregor lands were to the south of Lochaber over towards Argyll? I don't think I am related to Bobby Blackburn of Inverness, but just in case there is a relationship here is a little about my family. I have very little information about my g.grandfather James Blackburn, apart from he was probably born in 1840/1 in Belfast, Antrim. He married Susan Henney in Glasgow in 1870 and the two of them arrived in New Zealand in 1875, to settle in Eastren Southland, where my grandfather Robert was born. I have not been able so far to find a birth record, but one of my cousins says that the parents of James are John Blackburn and Martha Neilson. I still have to get a marriage record from Scotland, and with some luck I might make some progress from that. No one has found any record of his death or burial. He is in the electrol roll for 1911, and that's the end. My Blackburn grand Uncles and Aunts all born in New Zealand are John(Jack) Daniel, Alexander, Susan, Eliza, Martha, Kathleen, Agnes, Grace and Lilian. One source of information that I came across was an entry in Scottish Surnames which gives Berwickshire as the place of origin for the Name. Regards Greg Blackburn in Paekakariki New Zealand.