Annie Willson’s maternal grandfather, Duncan McKinlay, was born and raised on the McKinlay family farm called “The Anie”, in the parish of Callander, Perthshire, Scotland. The first owner of this farm of record was Finlay McKinlay, who lived and farmed there in the early 1600s. He had a grandson, John McKinlay, born about 1645, who in turn had three children: Donald McKinlay, born in 1669; James “The Trooper” McKinlay, who went to Ireland, then to America, and is a direct ancestor of President William McKinley; and our ancestor, John McKinlay, born 1679.
In Scottish, the “Anie” means, “ford of the deer”.
Many generations of McKinlays lived and farmed the “Anie”, starting with Finlay McKinlay in the 1600s, and some of the original structure still stands. We have some information about Annie Willson’s maternal grandfather, James McKinlay (1756-1825), who married Elenora Cameron (1768-1859). James was a “tacksman”, who held intermediate status in Scotland: tacksmen generally rented rather than owning their land, but often rented from a relative, and subleased some of the land to others. There is a chapel, St. Bride’s Chapel, near the Anie, where James McKinlay was buried in 1825, and his headstone still is visible.
James and Elenora McKinlay had nine children. Annie Willson’s father, their fourth child Duncan, immigrated to Canada with his brother, Ewen McKinlay in 1835. The reason or reasons that Duncan and Ewen left Scotland are unknown. However, the family farm would typically pass to the oldest child, and farmland was scarce in Scotland for those looking for new land. Further, the 1820s and 1830s were a time of economic distress, in addition to the cruel English “clearances” that put further pressure on farmland. It seems a safe assumption that the reason for Duncan’s and Ewen’s emigration was economic.
Annie Willson was the first woman to matriculate at and graduate from the University of Toronto: she graduated in 1890. On December 25, 1894, she married R.J. Bonner, who had been a classmate at the University of Toronto.