William MacDonald, son of Alexander MacDonald and Eliza Campbell was born about 1783 and died in 1863.  He married Barbara Cameron in the parish of Reay on 15 December 1802, both being noted as from ‘Braalbin’.  The family moved to Tullichan in the Strathmore of Caithness above Achscoriclate in the parish of Halkirk.

They had the following children:
Elizabeth – bapt. 15 June 1803…Halkirk.
John – bapt. 29 March 1808, Tullichan, Halkirk.
Margaret – bapt. 29 March 1810, Tullichan, Halkirk
George – bapt. 11 April 1812, Tullichan, Halkirk.
Donald – bapt. 29 Feb 1820, Bulchork, Halkirk.

The family emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1831.  They arrived in the fall of the year, spent that winter in Pictou then in the spring established their new home in a spot they called the Garden of Eden.  William was already 48 years of age when he came to the new world and his children ranged in age from 10 to to 31 years.  Besides a married son, William Jr. and his wife (name unknown) he brought with him a son-in-law, Warren Miller, married to his daughter Elizabeth as well as his other children.

‘Braalbin’ – John Thomson’s Atlas of Scotland, 1832  ©National Library of Scotland