My father was Dr Ewart Morris Mackay-Scollay, whose father Dr Thomas Scollay (who was apparently brought up in Western Scotland), married Helena Mackay Watts in about 1915?. She was obviously a fairly strong-willed person, as she tacked a hyphen in between her second given name and her married name, forming Mackay-Scollay, after her husband died, when my father was only three.

Thomas and Helena were medical missionaries in Tientsing in China, where my father (Ewart) was born in 1916. He was their only child.

They were on their way back to Scotland from China - overland via Canada, when they stopped to help out at in an influenza epidemic in Ontario, to which Thomas unfortunately succumbed, so Helena took the three-year old Ewart back to China, continued to run the hospital there, until Ewart was nine, when they went back to St Andrews in Scotland, where she ran a guest house on the Links (the building is still there).

I've always understood the name to come from the Orkneys.

My grandfather Dr Thomas Scollay was apparently also the son of another Dr Thomas Scollay.

My father passed away in 1986, and he was never very good at passing on family history, although he implied that he was named for Ewart Gladstone, four-time Prime Minister of the UK, to whom he was supposedly related, but I've not been able to find any link.

There are now a few Mackay-Scollays in Australia, my brother and one of my two sons have married, to further spread the name, but I'm pleased to note that Googling 'Mackay-Scollay' only brings up my immediate family!

I do not know how Dr Thomas Scollay (either of them) is related to the Scollay of Boston fame but would like to try and find out.

I would appreciate any help on tracing my Scollay connection - although I notice on http://www.cursiter.com/txt-exe-files/Scollay.txt that there are a number of Thomas Scollays listed - but which is which? I'm guessing that my grandfather would have been born in about 1860-1880?

Regards,

Richard Mackay-Scollay
Perth
Western Australia (Email Richard HERE)

Dr Thomas Scollay m. Helena Mackay Watts - 1 son, Ewart Morris Mackay-Scollay (b. 4 Feb 1916) married Mary Lillian Weller (b. 16 Feb 1923) (married 25 Oct 1947), 2 sons (Richard Andrew (b. 18 Aug 1952), Ian Mark (b. 25 Oct 1960)), 1 daughter (b. Jane Catherine (3 Oct 1948))