The McNairn Times
Publisher: Cheryl "Zetta McNairn" Grice Vol.1 No. 4 November 2001
Hello and Welcome
Well, here we are with another issue of The McNairn Times. It’s been quite a busy month… cousin Judi has been hard at work doing more research in addition to working at her job and raising her family, as is evidenced by the following article; I have been busy cleaning house and trying to organize my genealogy materials so that I can write a fabulous article in time for Christmas (hah!); and life in general has just been moving along at a far too rapid pace as far as I’m concerned! Is it my imagination, or is it true--the older you get, the faster time flies? I could sure use a couple extra hours in each day…that or I just need to hire a housekeeper. Oh, well….at least I’m getting the newsletter out before the end of the month…a major accomplishment for me! Enjoy, and as always, if you have anything to contribute or any comments, please do not hesitate to contact me, Cheryl, by mail at: 901 W. Memorial Dr., Muncie, IN 47302 ; telephone at: (765) 286-2816; or email at cheryllgrice@cs.com.
McNairns in Mitchell Village
Logan Township, Perth County, Ontario, Canada.
This month’s article will be on a new found family as far as I am concerned. Most of the McNairns in Ontario have been from John McNairn born in 1745 in Scotland - Cheryl’s ancestor. But I found a John McNairn on the 1871 census who was born in Scotland in 1845. He was living in the Village of Mitchell in Perth County, Ontario. I don’t yet know who John’s parents were in Scotland or exactly where in Scotland he was born - but I will find that out soon, I hope. I have more information about this family on the McNairn website http://jamcnairn.com/mcnairn/index.htm . Here is a capsule of this and a little bit of info about the area.
First of all for those who don’t know where Mitchell is - it is about an hour drive northeast from London, Ontario. It is located in Logan Township, Perth County. And here is some info about the family.
John McNairn was born June 18, 1845 in Scotland, and emigrated to Canada somewhere around
1869. He possibly died 21 Dec 1910. In 1871 John was listed as a blacksmith in Mitchell.
According to the history book of Logan Township called Legacy of Logan 1850-2000
John purchased 50 acres of land at Lot 1 Concession 3. The history of this property seems
to have John as the first purchaser of this property - before then the property had been
leased for 5 year periods. Logan Township was very swampy and in that area it was the last
to get settled. By 1881 John had a wife named Mary Jane who had been born in England and
two children, David James McNairn born in April 1876 in Logan twp and Mary Louisa McNairn
who was born March 10, 1879. I don’t have any more information on Mary Louisa but
David married a girl named Elizabeth Scoins. The farm that John bought was listed as being
his until 1912 when it changed hands to Elizabeth C. McNairn - I think David’s wife.
It would also seem she sold it shortly afterwards. This seems odd for a woman to get the
property but apparently at that time many men in that area were off working at logging
camps and it is probable that after John died (I think at the end of 1910) that it was
best to put the farm in Elizabeth’s name. David and his wife are buried at Knox
Presbyterian Cemetery in Mitchell as are a number of others. I expect that these others
are David and Elizabeth’s children and grandchildren.---Judi McNairn
Lost and Found
Well, it has been an interesting month for finding new relatives… quite by accident.
First, I was pleasantly surprised by a letter a couple of days ago from…John McNairn! No, not my 4xgreat-grandfather back from the dead…he is John McNairn, musician, from Scotland. He just started exploring the internet, and discovered the mini-biography about John McNairn that appears on Electric Scotland’s website. So he decided to write to me! He gave me quite a few little bits of information that I found fascinating and I would like to share them with you.
His father’s name is also John; he lives just outside Selkirk in Broomhill house, and is familiar with the McNairn origins at the Knowe farm near Newton Stewart. He is very active at age 91 and paints with oils and watercolours. He has a painting hanging in the National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. HIS father’s name was John as well, and he owned the Hawick News newspaper.
As for the John who wrote to me, he is a teacher and a musician as I previously mentioned. He has an album called Borderland which is a treatment of some of the old ballads of the Scottish Borders. He lives in Peebles with his wife and pets.
I had seen John McNairn mentioned before when I was doing McNairn research and Scottish music research, but had no luck finding an email or any way to get ahold of him, so I am very glad that he got ahold of me! Now the fun part will be finding out exactly HOW we are related….
My second discovery was of Lyn McNairn, who lives in New Brunswick, Canada. I found her name quite by accident on a Yahoo newsgroup posting, and decided to write and see if she would be interested in corresponding. I was quite pleased to hear from her! We have exchanged a couple of letters, and she told me that the story about John McNairn coming from Scotland to the US in 1773 and then moving to Canada in 1778 sounded very familiar. She started doing genealogy research about 5 years ago, but had run into a lot of brick walls, and she told me now that she is yearning to get back into it. She thinks that she may have heard about one of John McNairn’s brothers moving to the United States, and possible a couple of other brothers moving to New Brunswick. This is great news…another piece of our McNairn puzzle has been found, now we just have to find out where to put it!
I will continue to correspond with John and Lyn…hopefully by Christmas we might know where we all relate in the scheme of things, and find some new cousins as well!!!
In closing…
Five years ago, if I had tried to find information on my family, I would probably have hit a dead-end quite early on and never have discovered all my fascinating aunts, uncles, and cousins. Using the Internet as a genealogy information exchange has made my research so much more interesting, fulfilling, and a heck of a lot faster! And it is growing every day.
Even one year ago, typing "McNairn" into a search engine such as "Google" would have brought up perhaps 500 hits. When I type the name in today, I get over 2,250 hits! Isn’t that wonderful? Interestingly enough, the first hit is McNairn Packaging. I have written to them but haven’t heard back from them yet…however, I am persistent! The fourth hit is Judi McNairn’s site, and the fifth hit is my article in Electric Scotland about John McNairn. We are finally getting out there!
Once we get the information out on the internet, others see it and perhaps say to themselves, hey, I have a McNairn in my history somewhere….let’s post that information…and so on and so on, until some day perhaps we will have SOME idea of how we came to be scattered throughout Canada, the US, Australia, Jamaica, and other countries.
In the meantime, check out these sites. First, I would recommend Judi’s site…she has just update it and it looks fantastic. Lots of McNairn information here! The address is: <http://jamcnairn.com/mcnairn/index.htm>
My website is a little different and not quite as comprehensive, but I’ve recently added some pictures you might like to check out: <http://www.genealogy.com/users/g/r/i/Cheryl-L-Grice/>
If you come across anything interesting in your search, let me know!
See you next month!
Cheryl