I have not found anything new since I wrote you, nor have my two expert scouts.

I would suggest to your talented cousin, Capt. A. McGill, not to adopt theories for facts. I had fancied that I knew pretty accurately the topography and geography of Ireland, but the Captain says I gave "Larne" as in County Down. If I mentioned the name at all - and I do not remember that I did - I did not take it out of Antrim and set it down in County Down.

The fact of his people being able to see the Scotch coast from their residence has nothing to do with their being Scotch. None of the Scotch except those on the coast could see Scotland, yet they were no less Scotch-Irish. Let him be content with the historical fact that Macgill is Scotch. He appears to be doubtful about "Magill;" McGill and Macgill are the same thing.

By the way, your Sligo correspondent says, he added the full "Mac" to make it more Irish; why in this case he, very innocently, has changed it from the Irish form "McGill" to the distinctively Scotch form "MacGill."

So you see how cautious we must be in our investigation.

A word en passant about the Martins. Centuries before James I.'s time the "Martins of Galway" were the great family of the grand old town of Galway, and here and there in the county, too. In Hardimans (a learned historian of this Century), West Connaught, I find many notes about the Martins. There are - not nine, but ninety-nine chances to one, that your maternal ancestor, who was an English officer, was of the Galway line. This, of course, makes no difference, except to try hereafter to trace him.

Sincerely yours,

A. R. McGill, Esq., Minneapolis, Minn.

I do not remember what I wrote in my letter to Gov. McGill (which he referred to Mr. Oulahan) that provoked his ire and prompted him to admonish me to discard theories and fancies and adhere to historical facts. The fact is that I had been burrowing in the most unpromising fields for historical facts and every authentic discovery I had made disproved some popular tradition persistently maintained by some of our home theorists.

When Mr. Oulahan took up the work I followed him like a sleuth and every track he made was microscopically examined and its dimensions taken. Every fragment he sent in (it was all very fragmentary) was diligently compared with such meager historical data as were accessible and all concurrent and co-ordinate events noted. I was not diverging from historical facts, but was in eager pursuit of them.

Mr. Oulahan's facts were indisputable. He quotes from the greatest and most authentic works of our times, and his researches were most indefatigable. The point of divergence was not on his historical facts, but in our conclusions. The question at issue had practically been submitted to "Laffan;" at least, his statements had been called in evidence. "Laffan" declares that the name is of "Old Irish" derivation and that the Scotch nomenclature is the corruption of mixed dialects, and then proceeds to prove directly to the contrary. Mr. Oulahan indorses every statement made by Hennesy as strictly reliable, and then recedes from his original conclusion that we were of the old Irish and declares we are of Scotch Irish derivation, or better still, of the Scotch Celt; and then turns around and snarls at me as if I had said anything to the contrary. Our good and highly respectable brother from Sligo is called up and attests the faith that is in him by turning his name wrong end to "to make it more Irish."

Truly, our good Governor from Minnesota has got us into a pretty mix ; all to prove something that was never for a moment in doubt in my mind, and I do not believe it was, in the mind of either "Laffan" or Oulahan. As to Daniel, I think he had better be left out, at least, until he gets his name straightened out and finds exactly on which side of the fence he belongs. History, tradition, racial characteristics, form, features, moral and mental tendencies, with all the indelible birthmarks of intellectuality and manly pride, religion and nativity prove our pure Scotch Irish derivation, and so I stated in my letter to Governor McGill, sent to Oulahan. He thinks these things "fables or fancies." Well, perhaps they are somewhat theoretical, but when sustained by history and well authenticated traditions they very largely outweigh that other theory advanced by "Laffan" and indorsed by Oulahan, that the unpretending Scotch Irish name, McGill, is a "sadly mutilated derivation" from the ancient Irish cognomens, "MacGillashulligh, McGillhooly or simply Gillhooly."

Now, for the edification of all concerned we will state that our ancestors, up to the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, in Ireland and in America, in writing their name, did not use any form mentioned by our learned, distinguished and expert correspondents. My grandfather, Patrick McGill, wrote his name thus M'Gill, using the apostrophe, indicating the omission of a letter or letters between the M and G. The letters omitted may have been -ac-ak-or simply-a or c-as used in the forms, Macgill-Makgill-Magill, or McGill, all well known Scotch forms of great antiquity and rarely found in ancient Irish nomenclature. The change from the apostrophe to -c- was made by the Clerks in the Pennsylvania Land Office when the State issued patents to the McGill's for public lands purchased by them. Thereafter, in order to correspond with the title, all legal documents were signed McGill and the form gradually came into general use. The present form did not originate in Ireland, ancient or modern, so far as our family is concerned, though, it was probably in use there, derived from the Scotch form of MacGill. It is easily within my recollection that the form M'Gill was in frequent use, especially where the name appears in print in the periodicals of that day. These several forms all mean the same and are pronounced alike, and philologically considered establish the fact of our Scotch antecedents.

But we have promised the field to Richard Oulahan and give place to the result of his valuable researches, only going back a few days for a starting point.

Page 648       McGill

Captain Arthur McGill-

This officer appears by the description of his attainder of A. D. 169i, to have been of Carryroan, County of Antrim.

"At the Court of Claims in A. D. 1700, Hugh Colville preferred a petition for the revision of a chattel interest which this (the above) Arthur held in that county, and the claim was allowed."

"Rory Magill of Larne and Bryan Magill also forfeited lands in same county."