This web page is my ongoing attempt to build my family tree. I am primarily trying to link my family name as far back as I possible can. For now this is 1766 in Scotland. Given enough time I think I will be able to tie into the other Murchison's that I have seen on the Internet. That will be a huge undertaking as they seem to have been a prolific bunch. My ancestor that is furthest back, that I have confirmed, is Alexander Murchison. He was born in or near Inverness, Invernesshire, Scotland. He ended up in New Brunswick by joining the 104th Regiment of Foot, New Brunswick. This unit served in the war of 1812. There is some very interesting information on this unit that can be found online. A small time line of his events are as follows.

8 Oct 1804 - Enlists 104th Regt of Foot, presumably in Scotland

24 May 1817 - Unit disbanded

21 Aug 1817 - Pension granted, living in Fredricton, NB.

1821 - Bounty for Raising Bread Corn on New Lands 1817-1821

1822 - Grantee's of Kent Parish

1851 - Census of Victoria County

23 June 1859 - Dies, buried in Old Methodist Cemetery, Andover New Brunswick

His obituary shows that he was born in Kilmere, Isle of Skye, Scotland. This seems to contradict his military enlistment papers. however I have not been able to even find this town on any periodic map. His last will and testament gave me the names of his children that was able to lead me to the family tree I now have. Until then I had no information on anyone other than a direct line that was given to me from my father. It has ballooned to a fairly large tree, but not quite big enough. As with most east coast families, the post WW1 economy meant families had to move and started to spread out all over North America. In Canada there are four distinct Murchison families, none of which I have been able to tie together. These four families initially resided in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Manitoba. I think I'm about 1 maybe 2 generations from connecting to the Prince Edward Island group. In the states there seems to be 3 main areas; North Carolina, Illinois, and Georgia. At one point I thought that I may have tied into the North Carolina group, but I have decided that I do not have enough proof at this time.

So far the major New Brunswick families that I have tapped into are; Murchison, Caughey, Holmes, Hartt, Inman, Rideout, Wright, & Downey/Downing. It is interesting how the last two names have become so interchangeable. I find it important to pass along that if you are researching the Downey/Downing name, you definitely need to use a search engine with a soundex engine. Keep in mind that the code does not match both of these names together so do them both on the engine. This should help to find all the different spellings. It will look odd in my database looking at these families. I have tried to indicate the spelling that was on birth records, but within the same family the spelling variation occurs.

I have made a decision to split my wife's family off and away from mine strictly due to the size. Her family tree was fairly easy to work on, being of French Canadien. It took me about 2 years of research when I was able to tap into an enormous family tree. Her family leads back to France in the 1600's and helped to settle New France. In her case all I had to do was to traced her great-grandfather to his father. After that I found a tree already done. As it is time consuming to upload that database it may be some time before I upload it.

Murchison's of New Brunswick