James Livingston/Catherina Kuhn ancestry

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Canadian Livingstone
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Joined: Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:00 pm

Re: James Livingston/Catherina Kuhn ancestry

Post by Canadian Livingstone »

HI Greg,
Almost all Livingston families have at one time or another had a family story of being possibly related to Dr. Livingstone. The DNA test is really the only way to be sure, though most who have inquired with genealogy info do not seem to connected. None with New York State origins so far as I can tell. There are of course no direct descendants of Dr. Livingstone with the family name Livingston descended from his sons. Knowing this fact, the late Rob Livingstone was interested in finding a descendant of relatives of Dr. Livingstone such as someone descended from a brother, cousin or Uncle for the Y chromosome project. He wanted to determine whether or not Dr. LIvingstone ancestor was related to the Lismore Livingstones as Alexander Carmichael of Lismore had stated in his article of the early 19th century. Brother REv. Charles Livingston had one son who lived in Colorado but he did not have any descendants. I was slow to become interested Rob's DNA project back then, but I knew that Dr. Livingstone had older brother John Livingston who settled in Canada in the early 1840's and was able to determine he had a large family including several sons and was able with some luck a documented descendant of one of the son of the older brother who kindly agreed to do the test.

There are no doubt other Livingstons who are descended from the older brother John from other family branches but so far I have only made contact with one other descendant of the older brother. I know that two of the brother's son later ended up a Doctor in California and Banker in Washington State, much later in the 1800's, but there is no old family connected to New York State. There are possibly some descendants of an Uncle or a cousin or second cousin of Dr. Livingstone, but there are really no well detailed family trees of Dr. Livingstone's Uncles or Cousins so I really can't say with any certainly who Dr. Livingstone more distant Livingston relatives were. I know he had an Uncle charles who died during the Napoleonic wars and an Uncle John, Donald and Duncan but little is known about them and one of Dr. Livingstone's grandsons stated in the early 1800's that all of Dr. Livingstone's Uncles died in the Napoleonic Wars. I don't however know that to be entirely true. I do know for instance that there was a Donald Livingston who Lismore historian Alexander Carmichael mistook for Dr. Livingstone's grandfather, that joined Dr. Livingstone's real grandfather Neil Livingston Sr. and his grandmother Mary Morrison in Blantyre, Lanarkshire about 10 years after Neil Sr. arrived there and found work there as well. Just not certain whether this Donald Livingston born in the 1770's was actually am Uncle of Dr. Liviingstone or a cousin of his Dr. Livingtone's father Neil Livingston Jr. Donald's children baptism records however verify that he had been around the time of his marriage in the 1790's a member of the Argyllshire Fencibles and that the married a Catharine Livingtson also a Livington of Kerera, near oban, Argyllshire. Unfortunately Alexander Carmichael was told Donald Livingston was Dr. Livingstone's grandfather and published that as fact in his article which we have on our website. In fact it is well known fact that Dr. Livingstone's grandfather was Neil Livingston of Mull, Argyll who was married to Mary Morrison in 1774 in Kilninian Parish, Argyll and lived at Lettemore Mull and later the southern end of the Isle of Ulva until 1792 when he took his family to Blantyre, Lanarkshire and found work at the mill there operated by the Montieff family.

I regret we that Trick (Patrick) does not know more about his Livingston family line in the 19th century and before that in Scotland, because he is almost certainly related to one of Dr. Livingstone's grandfather's Livingston relatives, an unknown family branch, I suspect unknown to us unfortunately as I said there are no details of more distant Livingston family branches who may have related to Dr. Livingstone's family that resided at Mull or elsewhere in highland Argyllshire in the 1700's. Dr. Livingstone was known to be interested in his family origins but unfortunately devoted little time to researching or sharing the information with his readers in his books, though he did mention some aspects of his family origins briefly in his first book published in 1857 upon his first return from Africa. I really wish I knew more about other Livingston family branches that connected with his but we will only be able to find that out now and in the future with familytree Y chromosome test.

regards,

Donald
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