Dear Donald H
Your mention of Glengyle rang a bell with me. I have come across the
MacGregors of Glengyle while researching the Laird Birkenhead Shipbuilders.
Agnes, the wife of the founder was a MacGregor of Glengyle! You can find
MacGregor genealogy set out in "The House of Glengyle":
URL:http://www.ozemail.com.au/~wardjc/glengyle.htm.
William Laird started the shipyards in Birkenhead in 1824. His son was John
Laird and their yard made fine ships from 1824 onward. Perhaps its most
famous vessel was the warship and raider, the "Alabama". She was purchased by
the Confederates in the American civil war and had a short career sinking
merchantmen of the Northern Union States. The Alabama was finally sunk by the
Union battleship "Kearsarge" in the Bay of Biscay in 1864. John's son
MacGregor Laird was an African explorer! I posted a full story to the Laird
Family Association quite recently.
The yard, for some time known as Cammell Laird is still going and its
fortunes recently took an upturn.
One of the elders at Canisbay Kirk (I think Robert Sinclair, the owner of the
"Last House Museum at John O'Groats, (once a Laird home) in 1993 told us that
the shipbuilders were of the Caithness Laird Family, but I can only get the
line back to Renfrewshire.
Yours aye
Iain Laird
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