ALEXANDER Donald Mcbaith (McVey)

From the Hyten family archive; subject is Alexander Donald McBaith (McVey) (1623–?), a 9× great-grandparent of the compiler in the paternal-grandfather (PP) line. This entry covers his Scottish birth at Currie in Midlothian, his parentage, his marriage to Elizabeth (Bessie) Leslie, and the issue of his son Williame. Notable: a Lowland Scots progenitor of the McVey line, with the surname in transition from McBaith.

Alexander Donald McBaith, later rendered McVey, was born in the year 1623 in the parish of Currie, Midlothian, Scotland, a rural settlement lying a few miles to the southwest of Edinburgh along the Water of Leith. He was the son of Andro MacBaith, and his life unfolded entirely within the borders of Scotland, where the date and place of his passing have not been preserved in the family record.

The Lowland Scotland of Alexander's youth was a country shaped by the upheavals of the seventeenth century — the National Covenant of 1638, the Bishops' Wars, and the long contest between Crown and Kirk that defined the religious and political life of the era. Midlothian, set in the shadow of the capital, was a region of small farms, mills along the Leith, and tightly knit parish communities, in which a man's surname might be variously written from one record to the next. The transition of the family name from MacBaith, or McBaith, toward the form McVey reflects the fluid orthography of Scots Gaelic and Lowland Scots names as they passed through clerks, kirk sessions, and parish registers across successive generations.

Alexander married Elizabeth Leslie, known familiarly as Bessie, a union that joined him to a surname long established within the Scottish gentry and commons alike. Of their issue, the family register preserves a son, Williame McVey, born in 1665, through whom Alexander's line continued and ultimately reached across the Atlantic in later generations.

Though the particulars of Alexander's occupation, his religious affiliation, and the date of his death lie beyond the present record, his position at the headwaters of the McVey line in this family is firmly fixed. Alexander Donald McBaith was a 9× great-grandfather of the compiler, standing in the paternal-grandfather (PP) line of descent.