Facts and traditions collected for a family record

FACTS AND TRADITIONS.
My father also sought for information from the Herald Office in
Edinburgh, and probably elsewhere in Scotland. In Ireland, in the
north-eastern district, he found a large number of persons of the
same name ; and from the Dublin Herald Office he obtained copies
of the armorial bearings of names bearing resemblance to his own, and
then provisionally adopted the arms of O'Connell.
These investigations naturally modified his views as to the origin
of his family. Tradition had pointed to a Highland origin ; but
after these investigations, he came to the conclusion that his ancestors
had sprung from Ireland. Hence we cannot be surprised at the different
impressions of his views which his two eldest sons retain. Henry dis-
tinctly remembers his father telling him that an unknown ancestor came
over from Ireland into Cumberland, and thence into Galloway. James,
on the contrary, in a letter to me, dated 1840, says : —
I remember my father telling me that nothing was known of his ancestors
previous to the one who came from the Highlands. Tradition related that the
latter lived for several days in the woods before he emerged in Galloway, and
that his descendants did not attach any very honourable motives to his If ving
the Highlands, and hiding himself in the woods.
James also informs me that he remembers that, in the later period
of his father's life, the latter expressed doubts as to whether Scotland
or Ireland were the birthplace of his ancestors. In February 18G0,
Mrs Mary Porter, daughter of Isabel M'Connell, daughter of James
M'Connell of Hannaston, born A.D. 1729, told my brother James that
her mother (Mrs Cairns) used to say that her great-grandfather
M'Connell was a fugitive from the Highlands, and that the cause
was probably religious persecution, he having been (she thought) a
Nonconformist.
The following parish records, obtained by the writer this year, in
the Register House, Edinburgh, throw some light upon the subject : —