The Last Aha...

The One-Eye King

(Author's note:) The above image isn't of the "One-eye King" in question, Iain Camm MacGregor. It's an image of one of his contemporaries. Believe it or not, finding images of One-eyed Scottish kings from the fourteenth century isn't as easy as you'd think it would be. Now who'd a believed it so?)

Edited via fourteenth-century Google Gaelic translate. lol.

"Please - nobody better be too thin-skinned out there on the interweb today. All our ancestors are subject to a good ribbing."

~ Adam, in the Garden of Eden

Some people really hit the ancestral jackpot. I mean, think about it. I've researched individuals directly descended from both legendary and literary Old Ghosts. Their family lines come complete with disputed royal ancestry, and even singular kinships to actors like Bette Davis and James Dean—and, yes, even to a presidential assassin, though that last one is admittedly slightly less cool.

And heck, I won't even mention their ancestral folks who grace the pages of Ripley's Believe It or Not.

Honestly, does it get any better than that?

Then there are the people I've studied who can easily claim a related descent from "the Proper and Perennial," often known as the "Main Line." Their ancestors literally hung out with William Penn, with their descendants going on to become (for lack of a better phrase) "titans of industry," and, yeah, even a Soap Opera star. Go figure. These ancestral lines created huge companies that today bring us everything from Zantac to Brylcreem. These are the folks straight outta the last episode of the Gilded Age.

I mean, who'd a thunk it?

Like I said, some people have all the ancestral luck.

So, um, what did I get outta that genetic jacuzzi? What did I garner in my genetic stew outside of a few squirrely pilgrims on a rock and a leaky boat called the Speedwell, a couple of perhaps morally questionable witches, and a bunch of judgmental Quaker Karens? Ugh. (To my credit, I do have a decorated Gettysburg war hero and prisoner of war I get to claim descent from—and yes, I'm a Swiftie cousin too, just like my Old Main Line friend.)

I definitely missed out on any ghosts or Gilded Age crossover events. Yada-yada..

But in all of this, something's been missing. Kevin's been missing. I ask you, in all of this genealogical muck... What about our friend Kevin?

Yes, what about Kevin?

Now it isn't that Kevin is without his own fascinating progenitors. Personally, I think it's awesome that he can trace himself lineally and culturally from the Boston "North Enders" to the proverbial lava flow of Mount Etna. Plus, the stories of his Italian fisherman and Prohibition Era immigrant ancestors are captivating. They're both a great parallel and contrast to those of my own Dust Bowl persona. They are the different struggles of two vastly different peoples, but two that were both trying to do the same thing - all just trying to survive.

Not a lot of Gilded Age stuff or spooky old ghosts in this bunch either.

I love it too that Kevin has solid lines to two Revolutionary War patriots, with one leading pretty directly, and not inadvertently, to Old Caledonia. Yes, of all the lines I've recently studied—those of the heretofor unnamed 😉 "Fair Maiden and the Old Ghost," and that of "The Perennial Gentleman of the Main Line," and even my own family lines which I have dubbed "Grand Pubba of the Muttly Selves" — of all of them - Kevin has something I don't think any of the rest of us share.

His bloodline is patently and provably ancient.

(Well, unless you count my "muttlies," but we won't go there for now.)

However, Kevin lacks one thing.

No, make that two things.

First:

He doesn't have a specific reference point to grasp just how truly ancient his bloodline is. He has no historical figure by whom he could confidently declare, "That's my Grand Dah." While I can't help him much with his lines to Romulus and Remus or his folks among the Sikeloi, I can assist him on the other end. You see, I can give him at least his liege and likely ancestor. I can give him The One-Eye King.

And to get there, all I really need to do is return to clan MacGregor.

As you may recall, Kevin's five times great-grandfather was RW patriot Captain Henry Connelly. Captain Connelly married Ann MacGregor, daughter of Archibald MacGregor and Edith MacAlpine. I did a sundry documentation of this line in my June 27 post, Rumors of Legends. This post shows Kevin's lines to Captain Connelley and goes on to dispel rumors of any direct kinship between Kevin and that famous Scottish warlord, Rob Roy. (Darn it anyway.)

What the post doesn't do is take that extra step to see just what clans, if not who, Kevin can and should claim descent from. Because this interests me, I decided to go back and take a second look at "Archie and Edith." A better study of these two of Kevin's ancestors and their clans led me further back in time. It also brought me forward, where I found this:

Above: Doris McAlpin Russell's: McAlpine(e) genealogies, 1730-1990: Alexander McAlpin of South Carolina and Georgia and his descendants, plus other McAlpin(e) families of North America.

This contemporary and well-researched work contains a reference source for Kevin's sixth great-grandparents, and also links together the next three lines of descent to Kevin.

This was great, I mean the reference book and all, but still I wanted more than just a repetition of the information below:

It was from here that I found myself directed to:

The American Clan Gregor Society.

And I realized that Kevin would have no problem joining up with this society, and indeed, it might give him more answers as to who his ancient bloodlines are, all thanks to "Archie and Edith."