FINDING INDIVIDUALS ON THIS SITE

You will notice at the top of each page a number of buttons, particularly the two titled 'McKay Side' and 'Sutter Side'. For ease of navigation, I have basically split my ancestry into my father's side (McKay) and my mother's side (Sutter). By clicking on these two buttons you will come to pages that give a list of each individual ancestor on that side, by the generation to which they belong.

As you make your way through the site, you'll see that on the right hand side, against the named person, I have recorded the generation to which they belong. I am Generation 1, my parents are Generation 2 and so on. Also, where the same name crops up in different generations, e.g. Thomas Rodger (or variations thereof), I have appended a number in brackets to the name, in order to distinguish between them, e.g. Thomas Rodger (5), Thomas Roger (6), etc.

FAMILY TREE DIAGRAMS

I have constructed my entire family tree in segments, each covering a number of generations. From these diagrams you can again find individuals by clicking on their names. There is a link to this section in the drop down list contained in the 'MORE' button at the top of the page, or you can simply click here.

The full family tree, as it currently exists, can also be viewed by clicking here.

NAME SPELLINGS

It is not uncommon to find variations in the way that names are spelt, both family and first names. This can, at first, throw one off the track when trying to identify individuals, but once you accept that, for a variety of reasons, spellings can differ, it becomes easier. Spelling variations can come about for many reasons, e.g. the writer of the record may spell a name as he/she thinks it should be spelt, for instance my family name is 'McKay', but even to this day people spell it 'MacKay'. It could be that an individual recording the birth of a son or daughter, tells the registrar or parish clerk what his surname is, but because the informant is illiterate, does not know how to spell his/her own name, so is at the mercy of the person recording the birth. A person informing of the death of an individual, may be sufficiently removed generationally that he/she is unsure of the name of the deceased person's mother's maiden name and this could not only affect the spelling of the name, but the accuracy of the name itself. A good example of different name spellings is Ann McKay, my paternal Great Grandmother. Her maiden name is 'Begley' or variations thereof. In fact through a variety of records her name and her paternal ancestors' names have seven variations of this - they are Begley, Begly, Beglie, Bueglay, Baiglie, Baigley and Bigley.

So when this happens, how to name a person in the tree or in a list? The convention I have chosen is to use the name given in the earliest record I have of them. So Ann, in the example above, I have named 'Ann Begley' as that is how she is named in the record of her birth.

CENSUSES

An important source of information about my ancestors, is the series of Censuses undertaken in Scotland every 10 years, starting in 1841. Census details are only released 100 years after it was taken. So, at this point, we have access up to the 1911 Census. It follows that the next Census to be published will be that of 1921. At that point, I and many other genealogists, will be checking out details of those of our ancestors living at that time. It may be useful to know the dates the various Censuses were held on.

These were: