Mary Milloy’s Childhood Family (1820s)

In doing family history, we sometimes overlook the maternal line, perhaps because we tend to follow the patriarchal surnames. Regardless of naming conventions, 50% of our DNA comes from our mothers and they often have more sway in our lives than our fathers. We have no reason to think John Darroch’s mother, Mary Milloy, had any less influence on him. So, this post introduces his mother’s family: the Milloys.

In his red book, A Darroch Family in Scotland and in Canada, Frank Darroch recorded that the Milloys “had a large family of six girls and four boys. They lived in Clachan before coming to Canada about 1822….” [1]

I am grateful for the clues Frank left us. For example, Frank noted they lived in Clachan, and we would not have known that from christening or marriage records. Nine Milloy children were christened in the Killean and Kilchenzie Parish, about 14 km south of Clachan, and the others were further away. I had often wondered how Mary had met Archie. Frank's observation that the Milloys at one point lived in Clachan along with the Darrochs resolved that question. Frank did not cite the source for this fact—perhaps it was word of mouth.

This is the Killean Parish Kirk, built 1787-91 and the bell tower added ninety years later, in 1879. Mary Milloy and nine of her ten siblings were christened here. [2]

Frank implored us to “bridge some of the gaps” in our family history. He would be pleased to know of the facts discovered since he published his book in 1974. For example, we have found another daughter, bringing the total to seven girls and four boys. The following family group sheet shows Mary's parents and siblings.

From FamilySearch.org [3]

We have also learned the dates when the Milloy family immigrated to Upper Canada. Catherine (Kate) and her husband, Donald McMillan, settled in 1822. Their son, Dan McMillan, was entrepreneurial. He erected so many grain and lumber mills, the settlement was named McMillan’s Mills. Kate’s parents came around 1829. Some of her siblings came before their parents, and others came after. Mary and Archie did not arrive until the early 1860s, following their son, John, who had been there since 1849. One brother remained in Scotland to farm.

Many Milloys converged in Wellington County, Upper Canada (present-day Ontario), where they helped establish towns and villages. In addition to Mary’s siblings, many Milloy cousins also emigrated to Upper Canada. From one family, six brothers became ship captains on the Great Lakes. Fortunately, one of them was in a position to help John and Agnes Darroch as they made their way to Canada in 1849. I have found interesting information about this Captain Milloy, which I will share in a subsequent post.

The next post will be about Mary’s sister, Kate (Milloy) McMillan, and her family’s emigration to the wilderness in British North America in 1822. She was the first of the clan to do so.

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References:

[1] Frank Darroch, A Darroch Family in Scotland and in Canada, (1974) p. 61.

[2] Photo from Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

[3] FamilySearch.org. To see how to explore this family line further, go to the Genealogy tab.