Vol. 1 No. 3

Well, here we are again with another exciting issue of The McNairn Times. Sorry about missing a month there…..As you all know, September 11 was a rather…um…eventful day. I am afraid that I got rather sidetracked by the news, and was rather caught up in keeping track of the headlines and world news for several weeks. Me, the person who normally doesn‘t even read a newspaper!

By the time I realized that I hadn’t published a newsletter for the month of September, I decided that everyone would understand, given the circumstances. After all, it’s not every day that your country is attacked by vicious scum-of-the-earth cowardly Hitler-like bigoted fascists who have no regard for human life. Unless, of course, you live in Afghanistan, then you are used to it. (Sorry, had to throw my little "editorial" in there…..)

Hello subscribers to this publication, I would like to introduce myself first and then talk about McNairns. My name is Judi McNairn, and I live in Bruce County, Ontario, Canada. I have been interested in Family History research for almost 25 years now. I am 39 years old, I have one birth son and three step-sons, ranging in age from 17 to 25. I currently work (all part-time) as a soap-maker, pig farmer, bookkeeper/tax preparer and web-master of some sites.

As Cheryl has mentioned before, she and I met on the internet because of our research and the rarity of finding the name McNairn on the internet. As I recall, she e-mailed me first and said that often when she did a search on the genealogy pages for McNairn, my name kept popping up. We have been successful in proving a connection and relationship between us thanks to a great deal of research on her part. I am quite thrilled to have met Cheryl and do hope to have a face to face meet sometime.

I have always been proud of the name McNairn and the Scottish heritage that it carries. My grandfather, Samuel McNairn was born at Meikle Eldrig near Newton Stewart in 1900. He came to Canada about 1921 and married, had children including my father William Franklin who was born in 1935. I became interested in family history when I was a teenager - due partly because I stayed at a cottage every summer that was a family property from Samuel McNairn’s wife Helen St. George Wills. I was lucky to know Robert Harvey McNairn who with his brother Norman Alexander and father Professor William Harvey had done a great deal of research into the name and history in Scotland.

This research has continued on and off since and I became involved again a little over a year ago, and with the internet I have found so much that it is almost overwhelming. I have started an e-mail "list" on Rootsweb.com for all those researching the name McNairn and all variations. I have also created a webpage with information that I would have about the name and will try to keep adding to.

The McNairn name was mentioned in Galloway in 1684, in several different forms: McKnarin, McKnarrine, McKnarrie, McNaren, McNarien, McNarin, McNarrine, McNarron, McNearie, McNearin. The origins of the name may be in 1376 where the name McNarne shows up with Cuthbert M’Narne being a tenant of the lands of Auchirdilakdy in Dumfriesshire. There are some other possibilities about the origin of the name but the one above makes the most sense to me.

At this point, I know nothing of Gaelic other than hearing my grandfather say a few things in Gaelic that I couldn’t understand - but according to information I have, in Gaelic Nairn is "na fhearn" (fh mute) - meaning the Alder Trees. Therefore McNairn would presumably mean "Son of the Alder Trees" - interesting isn’t it?

Well, here in our little computer world if you look up the name McNairn on a search engine such as "Google" (MY personal favourite) you will get quite a lot of "hits" these days. What I’ve done here is try to collect a few of the more informative sites about the McNairns that you might like to check out.

Since the Attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, there are a lot of American Flags being flown, and an exhilarating and unexpected resurgence of a feeling of unity and patriotism here in the USA. John McNairn, if you will remember, was a staunch United Empire Loyalist--despite being harassed and even arrested in his new homeland of America. I wonder if this is how he felt about the Crown…..pride in who he was, where he came from, and certainty that the freedoms he envisioned for himself and his family would prevail. It adds an extra dimension to my imagination of what life would have been like for him…like putting flesh on the bones of genealogy.

See you next month!