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Farquhar McBarnet referred to below, Father of James Alex McBarnet, Sen:
2nd May 1925
Letterfinlay,
Invergloy,
Inverness-shire
According to family tradition the McBarnet’s are descended from a younger son of McKenzie of Suddy (2nd in Command Ross-shire Highlanders, Battle of Flodden) who killed a man in Inverness about 1700 (?), and was outlawed. He returned to Scotland some years afterwards under the protection of the Duke of Gordon who was a friend of his, and gave him a tack of a farm on his property near Lochabers, Morayshire. When he was alive in 1710 his descendants have practically all been connected with either the land or the army (as proprietors or tenants according to their fortune or position in life ever since).
The christian name of Farquhar occurs several times in family records in early times, the last Farquhar McBarnet known of was employed by my Grandfather on his estate of Torridon Ross-shire. In former days the highland gentry found it very difficult to dispose of their sons, and unless they were able to get them the tack of a farm or a commission in the army, they had to take anything they could get. Farquhar McBarnet was living in Torridon in 1839.
Most of the farms on the Duke of Gordon’s Lochaber property were held by McBarnets until the death of the last Duke and the sale of the Lochaber and Gordon Estates, and never hear of any descendants. No doubt all of that name came from the same stock. We have no idea why the name was assumed by our McKenzie ancestor who of course could not return to Scotland under his own name without causing scandal, though of course everyone knew who he was.
All the family records were lost in a fire early in the last century and it is a difficult and expensive job owing to absence of proper records in the highlands to try to link up with the McKenzies.
A.E. McBarnet Leiut. Col. Indian Army
Command of Scottish Horse Cavalry 1914-1918 War.
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