The Island of Mull lies off the West Coast of Scotland.  The oval on the above map encircles an area known as "The Ross".  In the Gaelic that means a promontory or a peninsula and this where our McLeans lived.    
    Our family story begins with a wedding on April 23, 1818.    The groom was a twenty-six year old shoemaker from Knocknafenaig named Donald McLean.  His bride, Meron Beaton, was from  nearby Archiavaig.
    Not much is known of Donald's family.  His father's name was Neil McLean and his grandfather, also Donald McLean, was said to have been a passionate Jacobite and a survivor of the Battle of Culloden in 1746.  The names of his mother and grandmother are unknown.  Donald had two older brothers, John and Hugh, probably a sister, Ann, and possibly other sisters.  How long the family had lived at Knocknafenaig is not certain, but Donald and  Hugh were born there in the early 1790's. 
    Meron Beaton was one of seven daughters of Donald Beaton and Ann McIntyre.  Meron, a Gaelic name, translates in the Scottish records to Marion but strangely becomes Sarah in Canada.  I will use Sarah, which was the name she used in later life.
    Nearly all the land on the Ross belonged to the Duke of Argyll and was in turn leased to farmers.  Donald's oldest brother, John, held the tenancy at Knocknafenaig in 1818 and married a Miss McInnes from the island of Iona.  The  other brother, Hugh, had married Catherine Beaton, one of Sarah's sisters in 1817.  Ann McLean, who appears to have been their sister, married Alex Cameron and all four couples settled at Knocknafenaig and began their families.