Relatives found in Scotland

[INSLaird@cs.com]

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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