Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

After my 2006 visit to Eigg, I finally got round to start writing the book about our family history. I had promised this book to my mother in the 1990s, or more specifically, a book about her Campbell grandparents on Eigg. It was then titled, The Isle of Eigg and the Story of Some of its People.

I had printed 10 or 20 copies of the book. I had taken them with me to Eigg in 2007 with the idea of giving them to the local shop. In other words, they could perhaps make a small profit, as I didn’t ask them for a fee. I happened to have a copy of the book when we were eating dinner at Lageorna. Of course, the first edition was full of many errors and absences of vital information (as no doubt this latest edition [2024] also is). 

As mentioned, I have had little contact with my cousins, or some of my brothers for that matter, during the last sixty years. The 2007 edition of the book includes a “Genealogy of Roderick Campbell – Sarah/Morag/Marion/Christina MacKinnon”. This Genealogy is also included in this edition (updated). 

The point I’m trying to laboriously make here is that I do not have thorough knowledge of the Campbells and MacGillivrays between 1945 and 2024; that is their marriages, and children. I have obtained most of this information second-hand from my mother and others. In other words, my “Genealogy” was far from perfect.

I’m not sure who it was that started to ‘correct’ my book when we were sitting having a meal and fill in the gaps. It was perhaps my Auntie Violet or cousin Alan. Whatever, while writing this in 2024, I am sitting with the ‘corrected’ version in front of me. So I have attempted to update the ‘Genealogy” (see Appendix). Neither have I mastered so-called family history templates. But my aim here is not to be perfect ☺

After the dinner (or perhaps on another day) we walked to the ‘famous’ “Singing Sands”. My mother would go into an ecstasy of remembrances whenever she saw a ‘white’ (silver) beach on our holiday travels in Scotland. Thus, ‘ordinary’ sandy-coloured beaches paled in comparison.