The ancestry of David Livingstone
Did Dr. David Livingstone’s grandfather really die at the Battle of Culloden?
Dr. Alexander Carmicheal wrote an article in the 1909 Celtic Review that Neil Livingstone, a great-grandfather of the explorer who lived on the island of Lismore, joined the Jacobite cause led by Prince Charles Edward Stuart, affectionately known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie. “After surviving the battle, he headed home, however, he was unable to return to Lismore, so he ended up in Ulva. This conflicts with Dr. Livingstone’s claim that his grandfather died in battle.
Carmicheal’s view is that held by the Argyll Livingstones.
It is interesting to note that the Argyll Living Stones followed Appin’s Stewarts to the Battle of Culloden, where Donal Livingstone retrieved the Stewarts banner and brought it to Ballachulish. The Livingstones of Lismore were known as the Barons of Bachull, from whom Dr. David Livingstone (e) is descended.
My great-great-grandmother is Ann Livingston (e), born around the same time as Dr. Livingstone. Ann married William Stewart at Old Kilpatrick on May 23, 1834. So what was the connection that allowed William Stewart and Ann Livingstone to intersect? My ancestors have often said “Ann is related in some way to Dr. Livingstone, however I have not been able to find the connection. William was born in Stirling in 1808, but Ann’s date of birth is unknown, everything What we do know is that Ann was not born in Dumbartonshire, because the 1841 census indicates that she was not born in the county.
Livingstone’s father took his family to Blantyre, near Glasgow, to work in the cotton mills and his brothers also worked in the mill. I thought maybe Ann worked there, but the National Library of Scotland has stated that no record is known of who worked at the factory.
As for Ann being married to William Stewart, I’m curious how they met. I read somewhere that people rarely married under the age of 20 in the 19th century and that in fact the average age for a woman to marry in Scotland during this time was around 24, but people tended to to wait longer to get married if their financial circumstances did not favor them when they were younger. This is more true for men, which explains why the average age of men was 26 in the early 1800s.
David Livingstone’s parents were Neil Livingstone and Mary Morrison. They had five sons and three daughters. The names of the sons Charles, John, Duncan, Donald, Neil and their daughters, Mary and Catherine. Not much is known about Dr. Livingstone’s aunts and uncles. I note that Charles died in 1815 from the notes of another researcher. 1815 was the year of the Battle of Waterloo, so did you lose your life there? I read that all of Livingstone’s uncles served in the Napoleonic wars, but I guess this wasn’t necessarily at Waterloo because the Napoleonic wars went on for several years.
I have used many websites like Scotlands People, Family Search, Rootschat, Clan Livingstone, and others. I find all these sites useful.
William Stewart and Ann Livingstone’s son Robert Stewart (born 1842) immigrated to Australia in 1862 and then to New Zealand in 1865. Robert is my great-grandfather. Some of the skills Robert learned in Scotland as a young man proved very useful in New Zealand. He operated a brewery in Greymouth (New Zealand) for several years. This was continued by his son Archie until 1961 when it closed.