2024 Week 31: End of the line #52Ancestorsin52weeks

My 2 x great grandfather, John McAra, born in 1800, never married Jane Gregory, with whom he conceived my great grandfather, also named John McAra. Instead, he married another lady in 1827, the same year as my ggf was born - and had a large family with her. My great grandfather thus had no full siblings to help carry on the McAra/Gregory line.

This John in turn married Mary Boag in 1847 and they went on to have six children, including my grandfather, another John McAra, before Mary's untimely death at the age of just 40, barely a month after the birth of her last child. My grandfather was their oldest male child and the only one of their male children to make it past childhood. Thus this other John McAra, born 1864, was the only one left in this line to carry on the family name.

Things seemed to have taken an upturn for the better as far as the continuation of the McAra name, with John marrying my grandmother, Christina Walker and the couple going on to have five male children who survived to adulthood. Better odds here you would think!

The McAra family 1914-1915.

Back row: Jean, Lamond, Mary

Next row: James, Christina Walker with John, my dad, Agnes, George, John McAra and William

Of these five sons in the photo, Lamond never married and died at the age of 39. That left four who could produce a son. So what of the other four? Well, James had two daughters, George had no children, John, my father, had two daughters, with Will(iam) first having a daughter and then being the only one to have a son of his own, again named John.

This John McAra, my cousin, also went on to have an only child, a son named .......John, who has had no children. There are therefore no more male descendants of my great great grandparents who have the surname McAra. We have come to the end of that line.

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