Record of the descendants of John Alexander

INTRODUCTION.
The name Alexander is of Grecian origin and signi-
fies a Helper of Men.
Very few names have been so long and so extensively
used both as a Christian and as a surname. For more
than two thousand years it has been found among all
the nations that have received the literature and civiliza-
tion of Greece and Rome. It is not known when it
began to be used as a first or Christian name in Scotland,
but the genealogy of the British Peerage, printed in
1840 by the Edmund Lodge of London, informs us that
Alexander McDonald, second son of Donal, King of the
Isles, had two sons who adopted the Christian name of
their father as a surname for themselves and their
descendants. Thus a numerous clan of Alexanders
descended from the ancient clan of the McDonalds,
including both a nobility and a commonalty. Their
residence was first in the south of Scotland about Edin-
burgh and Glasgow. Their chiefs were the Earls of
Stirling and Dovan. In the civil and religious revolu-
tions and persecutions of that country many of this clan
were scattered from Scotland into England, and espe-
cially into the North of Ireland, where, besides the com-
monalty, some families have long enjoyed and do still
enjoy hereditary nobility and honorable positions both
in church and state. On this point the reader will find
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