ali7ms wrote:I haven't discovered the McArthur's in the Fleming Family tree. Any clues?
Hi Ali !
Perhaps you misunderstood the posts due to confusing sentences. Neil McArthur was my 3xGr Grandfather, (born in Haylipol, Tyree in 1795) and was never a member of the Fleming family. During those lean years in Tiree with less peat to cut and fewer and fewer trees to make fishing boats, he moved south to Campbeltown to earn money for his family and his parents back on the island.
Neil, (who has another 3xGr Grandson called Neil McArthur in Campbeltown with the Garden Shop) was a tenant in Flemings Land. (mentioned in the 1841 census) At the time, Neil was a shoemaker of a certain standing, (leather boots and town shoes instead of clogs and farm footwear) …, and with a little commercial imagination, it seems obvious he could have manufactured for Fleming himself.
Probably due to his link to the local farmers and cowhide, a few of Neil's descendants became pig farmers and butchers…, with the last having a butcher's shop in the Longrow. As a lad, I helped them make their sausages and deliver meat on their old rickety Raleigh bicycle !