As I have McKays on both sides of my own personal family tree it stands to reason I would attend more than one McKay Family Reunion. My dad's ancestors came from the most Northern part of Scotland to Vancouver Island in the 1800s after the clearing of the Highlands. My family suffered particularly at the hands of the Dukes (Earls) of Sutherland and their ilk. On my mother's side she has ancestors who left Ireland again in the 1800s probably because of the famines. These various ancestors settled on Vancouver Island which at the time may have been a seperate colony from British Columbia even before the Confederation of Canada in some cases.
I've done some more work on my family tree including adding a genealogy section to my blog. I also collected a list of battles my ancestors most probably fought in. Others have done even more work.
My dad's side of the family is smaller and less familiar to me than my mother's side. My dad's mother's family the Dougans and her sister's inlaws the Coxs featured more prominantly in my childhood than my dad's cousins. However as we've aged and the survivors have dwindled a reunion was organized for November 5th 2006. I attended, took a photograph, and again got tasked with making the family tree available online. No one came from the States this time and Melanie's husband was sick in Austria but we did have Albertans. There is a site about the Mckay's who settled in Canada.
My sister digitized some family photographs and put them on her Flickr account. They are mostly of my grandfather Bill McKay and also some of his mother Daisy. It includes some people who died before I was born. My sister wrote a little blurb about each one.
On August 3rd 2002, in Union Bay BC, the McKay Clan gathered together for a day of: horseshoes, sack races, and roast pig. Relatives from Alberta, Oregon, and all over BC gathered in one place for the first time. A family tree was constructed and a single photo of most of the attendees remains online.
The following photographs were scanned from The Friendly Port by Janette Glover-Geidt.
