Kilmallie Image Library

	119
	Peter Kerr
	1890

Ann McKinnon

Picture Added on 12 June 2008.

Comments

My great grandmother Ann McKinnon (see photo attached) was born in Corpach in June 1837, the daughter of Ewen McKinnon who was pier master and agent for David MacBrayne at Corpach. They lived in a cottage which was just up from where Corpach station is now. Sadly it was demolished many years ago.

The McKinnons had come from Moy, up towards Gairlochy, and they are buried in a plot at Strone (which can still be seen). Ann left Lochaber as a young woman to make her way in the world, working in grand English houses, in one of which she met and subsequently married my great grandfather, a lowland Scot called James Kerr. Ann retained her Lochaber heritage and always spoke to her siblings in the native Gaelic. However, she never taught it to her children and sadly it died out in our family.

Each year the family would return to Lochaber for holidays, initially on the train to Oban and the steamer (“The Mountaineer”) on to Corpach, but after 1901 by the new train all the way!

As the picture shows, Ann was a fairly formidable lady, and I gather that my father was pretty scared of her. She died in 1923 at the grand age of 85. Her unmarried sister Mary McKinnon, who had lived with her, then returned to Lochaber, but after her death in 1924 our family rather lost touch with our roots. However, in 2005 we re-established contact with our McKinnon cousins (descendants of Ann’s brother Dugald, a blacksmith in Corpach) and have since met up – in Lochaber!

I have written an account of my family – McKinnons, Camerons, Boyds and Colquhouns, and would be glad to post a “Word” copy on the site.

Best wishes

Peter Kerr

Added by on 12 June 2008.

would love to see that 'word'post you promised, as i have a lost JANET Mckinnon
who married Donald Cameron(farmer ballachulish)ca.1800 and begat my G.G.GFather Alex C. who mig'd to Australia.
Any clues to ancestors on either side here?
Also Christina McKinnon married Charles Cameron(quarrier Ballachulish) about the same time - Any Clues would be Much Appreciated.
An

Added by Graeme Cameron - Australia on 05 December 2010.