My 3 times great grandfather - Dougall McFarlane

Dougall (Dugal/Dugald/Dougal/Dougald) McFarlane (1815-1856)

born in Dunning, Perthshire Scotland
died along the banks of the Clyde in Glasgow

I always felt a sadness that resided in the anger my father often directed at me. In the year before he died, he expressed deep regret for this. I had long forgiven him as I knew this was key to living my best life.

Part of my genealogical search has been to understand where this sadness stems from, and ancestrally, I see my 3rd great grandfather as tied to this.

Dougall McFarlane was born to Elisabeth Garvie and Dougall McFarlane in 1815. The norm was to have a child baptized soon after birth, but in Dougall's case, there was a 5 month delay.  As I struggled to decipher the scrawled details of his baptismal record, it did become clear...

IN FORNICATION

Dougall was born outside of a marriage union. IN FORNICATION - a mark he could carry with him until his sad end.

Dougall married Margaret Christie in Perth, Perthshire in January of 1837, and according to his marriage bann, he was an apprentice baker at the time. He must have abandoned this for the security of manual labour, and was a saw sharpener by the 1841 census, and until he died.

DEATH BY SUICIDE - DROWNING

The official record. A kind armchair genealogist across the ocean sent me an article he had found. My Dougall had leapt to his death in front of horrified co-workers in October of 1856. He left behind several children and his wife, who'd all be left to their own devices to survive. The article mentioned a court case which has so far been left in the faded days of history.  Sadness. Anger. But overwhelming sadness.

I speak and write his name to help clear these particular ties. I cried when I found out the truth of his sad and desperate death. For a man unafraid of hard labour, whatever he was dealing with must have been monumentally crushing.

I think of him often, and then I think of my father, and the imprint our ancestral past manifesting in future generations - tucked deep in the DNA, brought back when my father's childhood essentially ended - Glasgow, not far from the banks of the Clyde, during World War 2 - in the sounds of night bombings and shattered glass...the breaking of wedding gifts my grandmother had proudly displayed in her dining area...shattered as they ran for their lives and tucked themselves into the bomb shelter my grandfather had built with the help of the neighbours in their back garden. Sadness that resides in anger when one hasn't the tools, nor the history, to express it.