{"id":149,"date":"2008-06-11T02:32:10","date_gmt":"2008-06-11T02:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149"},"modified":"2008-06-11T02:39:39","modified_gmt":"2008-06-11T02:39:39","slug":"alexander-magruder-%e2%80%94-how-strong-is-the-case-for-his-parentage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Magruder \u2014 how strong is the case for his parentage?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Not particularly strong.  This is a classic case of a circumstantial argument for the identity of an early colonist, which (unsurprisingly) connects him to a mother (Margaret Campbell of Keithick) with demonstrable noble ancestry. I have just dug up the two articles by Charles G. Kurz (based on research of Thomas Garland Magruder, Jr.) which build the case for his identity and lay out some details on his alleged mother&#8217;s ancestry.  For those who are interested and who haven&#8217;t seen the original articles, I&#8217;ll make them available here for download as pdfs: <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nltaylor.net\/ancestry\/royaldescents\/Kurz1.pdf\">Charles G. Kurz [&#038; Thomas Garland Magruder, Jr.], &#8220;The Ancestral History of Margaret Campbell of Keithick,&#8221; <i>Yearbook of the American Clan Gregor Society<\/i> 62 (1978), 55-65.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nltaylor.net\/ancestry\/royaldescents\/Kurz2.pdf\">Charles G. Kurz [&#038; Thomas Garland Magruder, Jr.], &#8220;The McGruder Lineage in Scotland to Magruder Family in America,&#8221; <i>Yearbook &#8230;<\/i> 63 (1979), 53-72.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>These articles do make some effort to cite primary sources, but there is no systematic presentation of the strengths and admission of the weaknesses of Magruder&#8217;s claimed parentage.  Kurz treads very lightly on the idea that these Magruders have nothing to do with the MacGregors, while still indulging in the old game of self-congratulatory worship of noble ancestors.  Speaking of which, here&#8217;s something a little weird: the mixed-genre poem by <a href=\"http:\/\/mason.gmu.edu\/~stichy\/\">Susan Tichy (poet, and Associate Professor of English at George Mason University)<\/a> called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ohiou.edu\/~quarter\/submissions\/SUBMISSION14.HTML\">&#8220;Heath IV,&#8221; a modern reflection on Magruder<\/a> which of course preserves some of the old canards about his life and spurious relation to clan Gregor. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not particularly strong. This is a classic case of a circumstantial argument for the identity of an early colonist, which (unsurprisingly) connects him to a mother (Margaret Campbell of Keithick) with demonstrable noble ancestry. I have just dug up the two articles by Charles G. Kurz (based on research of Thomas Garland Magruder, Jr.) which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medievalia","category-us-genealogy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Alexander Magruder \u2014 how strong is the case for his parentage? - a genealogist&#039;s sketchbook<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alexander Magruder \u2014 how strong is the case for his parentage? - a genealogist&#039;s sketchbook\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Not particularly strong. This is a classic case of a circumstantial argument for the identity of an early colonist, which (unsurprisingly) connects him to a mother (Margaret Campbell of Keithick) with demonstrable noble ancestry. I have just dug up the two articles by Charles G. Kurz (based on research of Thomas Garland Magruder, Jr.) which [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"a genealogist&#039;s sketchbook\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-06-11T02:32:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2008-06-11T02:39:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nat Taylor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nat Taylor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nat Taylor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/#\/schema\/person\/813beaf90cc5894d9b08c1aedc7b96e9\"},\"headline\":\"Alexander Magruder \u2014 how strong is the case for his parentage?\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-06-11T02:32:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-06-11T02:39:39+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149\"},\"wordCount\":257,\"commentCount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/#\/schema\/person\/813beaf90cc5894d9b08c1aedc7b96e9\"},\"articleSection\":[\"medievalia\",\"US genealogy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149\",\"name\":\"Alexander Magruder \u2014 how strong is the case for his parentage? - a genealogist&#039;s sketchbook\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-06-11T02:32:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-06-11T02:39:39+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Alexander Magruder \u2014 how strong is the case for his parentage?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/\",\"name\":\"a genealogist's sketchbook\",\"description\":\"medieval and modern genealogy, memory and history \u2014 part of nltaylor.net\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/#\/schema\/person\/813beaf90cc5894d9b08c1aedc7b96e9\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/#\/schema\/person\/813beaf90cc5894d9b08c1aedc7b96e9\",\"name\":\"Nat Taylor\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/moonman.jpg\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/moonman.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/moonman.jpg\",\"width\":349,\"height\":366,\"caption\":\"Nat Taylor\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/moonman.jpg\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/author\/nat\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Alexander Magruder \u2014 how strong is the case for his parentage? - a genealogist&#039;s sketchbook","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/nltaylor.net\/sketchbook\/archives\/149","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Alexander Magruder \u2014 how strong is the case for his parentage? - a genealogist&#039;s sketchbook","og_description":"Not particularly strong. 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