No comments about Montana's genealogical and local history records: A selected list of books, manuscripts, and periodicals (Gale genealogy and local history series).

No comments about 1998 Blackfeet Genealogy, Treasures, and Gifts.

No comments about The Lamach Family of Montana.

No comments about On the lite side of Philipsburg Montana: Tales of Ol' Perd-Gramma and other plain folks.

No comments about Wherever the Grass Is Greener: The Moving Memoirs of Lelia Light Farnum.

No comments about Census Of The Blackfeet, Montana, 1897-1898: 1832 George Catlin's "Buffalo Bull".

No comments about Bob & Charlie Ford's family connections: Slayers of Jesse James.

1 comments about The Same Great Struggle: The History of the Vickery Family of Unity, Maine, 1634-1997.

1. Andrea Constantine Hawkes has done a wonderful job of describing New England social history through the lens of a family, the Vickerys. The Vickery history starts with fishermen in Massachusetts Bay who later settle in a farming community in mid state Maine, Unity. It is the most reader friendly geneology I've read as Ms. Hawkes weaves the events of the day into the story of 10 generations. I particularly enjoyed the "detour" to Montana, where one branch of the Vickerys ( and Unity, Maine) settled.
   I recommend the book for non professional readers of New England history who want a glimpse into the life of our ancestors.

2 comments about Scottish Highlanders, Indian Peoples: Thirty Generations of a Montana Family.

1. Dr. James Hunter, one of Scotland's most respected younger historians, recounts here the story of the MacDonalds of Western Montana -- a family whose roots run deep on two continents and among two seemingly disparate peoples: the Nez Perce of Oregon and Idaho's great inland plateau and one of the most legendary clans of the Scottish highlands. On one level, this is a first-class genealogical detective story, with plenty of local color. But it is much more than that, for what brings these two far-removed pasts together is not only the mingled blood of today's Montana MacDonalds, but the striking and, in many respects, tragic parallels in their people's histories. Just as every schoolchild in Scotland knows the dark tale of the MacDonalds' massacre at Glencoe, and their struggle to survive and maintain their identity and dignity in the aftermath, so Americans are haunted by the uprooting and dispossession of the Nez Perce and their legendary leader Chief Joseph. Those par! ! allels strike us as we readers see the MacDonalds' saga unfold, and they raise for us fundamental questions about human nature and the forces that shape history. Jim Hunter's work in both print and broadcasting, which is well-known in Britain, achieves that rare balance between sound scholarship and great popular appeal. He is a meticulous researcher, yet his interests are first and foremost human ones, and the stories he tells best are always those of common folk. The fact that this book has been a best-seller in Scotland while also earning critical acclaim shows how well he succeeds at this delicate balancing act. For North Americans with an interest in genuine flesh-and-blood Scottish history, not the bogus romanticized article that features prominently in so many clan gatherings and Scottish games [after all, how many Scots-Americans' ancestors were REALLY lairds and ladies living grandly in castles???], this book will prove very satisfying indeed. We can be thankful that ! ! the Montana State Historical Society has now made it availa! ble to North American readers. Aye, it's a fine work, and at a bargain price to boot!



2. Scottish Highlanders, Indian Peoples is a loving undertaking to document and treasure the dual heritage of a familial group of people descended from Angus McDonald (who was Scottish) and Catherine McDonald, who was half Nez Perce and part Mohawk. The author describes his revised purpose in writing this book as follows: "This book was begun in the naive conviction that it would have an unrelievedly happy ending. Its comparisons between the modern Scottish Highlands and the modern Flathead Reservation, it was anticipated, would be such as to allow the book's closing paragraphs to contend that Highlanders and Indians, two otherwise disparate peoples linked by the McDonald family, are today overcoming the legacies of their respective pasts in ways which will allow both Highlanders and Indians to reinvigorate their cultures, their languages and much else besides. That may still happen. But to spend even a few days on the Flathead Reservation is quickly to discover that the task of linguistic renewal - to take a single example of the many such distinctions which have clearly to be made - is enormously more daunting here than in the Scottish Highlands...(p. 194)." The reality of the poverty of the inhabitants of the Flathead Reservation hits the author and the reader hard indeed. Nevertheless, after reading the history, which includes many moments of less than glorious deeds of the ancestors, one can only concur with the Salish speaker quoted by the author:"We have a saying...that as long as our songs are sung our people will remain here. And our songs are being sung today more than they have been sung for many years (p. 194)." Though the prose style of Mr. Hunter is sometimes tedious to untangle, his text is worth reading. Scottish Highlanders, Indian Peoples will appeal to special interest adult audiences both amateur and academic.

   Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer