Recent DNA matching is making a compelling case for identifying two more siblings of Alexander MacDonald, settler at The Falls.

William MacDonald was born in Clyne in 1791 and married Mary Murray of that parish in 1836. They lived at Badnellan near the town of Brora where he died in 1861.

Donald MacDonald was born in 1794. In 1813 he took up duties as a laborer with the Hudson Bay Company at York Factory, Rupert’s land. Two years later he was transferred to the Cumberland House trading post where he served until being transferred to the Edmonton trading post 1816. In 1817 he attempted to board a ship for Britain without leave and was fined 10 pounds. He was dispatched to Fort Carlton thereafter. In 1820 he was back in Fort Edmonton. 

He married a Metis woman by the name of Jean Beaudry in 1840 although they had been together with several children by this point. (Clergy were scarce in the outposts so marriages were legitimized when the couple would return to civilization). They had twelve children who eventually settled in Manitoba.

In 1834, “Big Donald of the Blackfeet” retired from the Hudson Bay Company and took up farming at St. Andrew’s, Lisgar, Manitoba which is in the Red River Settlement.