The only source that ties Margaret McLean into the Ordachoy family tree is the 1866 file and nothing I have found so far provides absolute solid corroboration. On sheet six, Charles tells us that James was married to a Margaret McLean, was a gamekeeper in Glengairn, and had five children two of whom became gardeners in London and one of whom immigrated to America. I did find a James and Margaret McLean in the Glenmuick and Glengairn OPRs, and they do have the baptism of five children listed with the only name difference being a May instead of Charles' Mary. Unfortunately, no entry irrefutably links James with Ordachoy; the marriage entry lists them both as being from the Parish of Glenmuick and Glengairn. But, putting faith in the couples' strong adherence to the traditional family naming policies of Scotland, we find that the children are baptized, in order, May, James, Robert, Anne, and Alexander. According to tradition, the first son born is named after the paternal grandfather while the second is named after the maternal grandfather. With the girls, the order is reversed and the first daughter is named after the maternal grandmother and the second named after the paternal grandmother. This gives us names for the paternal grandparents as James and Anne McHardy (a match), and the names of the maternal grandparents as Robert and May McLean.

Putting all doubt aside for the moment, and assuming that the names James and Anne do tie the family back to Ordachoy, can we put together the possible origins of Margaret McLean by looking for the names Robert and May McLean? Working through the OPRs for Strathdon; Crathie and Braemar; and Glenmuick, Tullich, and Glengairn, I found that the name McLean did not appear too often, and that those names that did appear managed to tie in quite nicely together, if not perfectly. Margaret and James married in 1843, and our James, son to James and Ann of Ordachoy, was born in 1813. I found a Margaret born to a Robert McLean and Jean McDonald in 1815 in Drumargartie, Crathie. In 1816, a Robert McLean in Rintarsin, Crathie, married to a Jane Symon had a daughter baptized Marjory. The two went on to have John (1819) and James (1821) in Crathie before moving to Micras in Glenmuick and Glengairn to have Donald (1825) and Alexander (1827). Could Margaret's father Robert be the same Robert, married to a different woman, who moved to Micras? I did also find a Mey McLean in Glengairn in 1851, registered as the mother of a child born to an Alexander Calder. An unregistered sister of Margaret's perhaps, for whom Margaret's eldest daughter is named, Margaret having no memory of her mother if her mother died before she was a year old?

Moving on to Robert, be there two of them, I found a Robert born in 1785 to a John McLean and Janet Leys of Ardoch, Crathie. From the OPR records, this John married a Barbrew Smith after Janet Leys died in 1791 and went on to have children named Marjory and John. Robert married to Jane Symon also had children named Marjory and John — a link here between the two familes? Putting it all together, I would suggest that Margaret was daughter to Robert McLean and his first wife Jean McDonald (second wife being Jane Symon), and granddaughter to John McLean and his first wife Janet Leys (second wife being Barbrew Smith).

The only way I can verify any of this speculation is to trace the family of James McHardy and Margaret McLean. If there are any McHardys (or McLeans) out there, possibly living in the London area, to whom any of this seems familiar, please get in touch with me. I would love to hear from you, even if it's to tell me I'm way off the mark. In the meantime, I have listed below all the references to the name McLean that I managed to glean from the OPRs.

McLeans Listed in the OPRs