i have had a message from Nancy the art teacher in Cape Breton who i am arranging an artistic exchange with . originally we had thought that her ancestors had travelled on the' Hector' travelling from Loch Broom...

'I was talking about this connection , with my Dad , who is 83, and how interesting it was that you are close to Loch Broom , where our ancestors came from . I also questioned him about them coming over on the Hector as that was what I had always been told. Anyway Dad then said he wasn't sure on that now.... so I 've been going back through the family records as I never really questioned it before now. And so I must set the record straight..... The Hector sailed in 1773.......my great, great grandfather Murdock MacLean, was born in Loch Broom in 1782 , his wife , Mary Innis born in Loch Broom, 1801......needless to say, they didn't quite make that boat!!Their first child, Rodrick Mclean was born in Riverdale , Nova Scotia in 1820, my great grandfather , Murdock MacLean was born 2 years later. I am not certain when the family left Scotland. My grandfather, James Murdock Maclean, was the only one in his family to live in Cape Breton. He started out as a tailor,working in the coal mining town of Inverness in the Cape Breton Highlands. '