You will no doubt have noticed in PART ONE of the McColm book beside two of Jock's descendants the following notation: "(Note: John and Dugald apparently went to the United States and never returned. I was unable to obtain details of his descendants, if any.)" I had made an effort in this regard but without success. As my research on the book had gone on for a considerable time, I felt that I could not delay the publication date any longer. And although the book was published, I did not forget about Jock's two sons John and Dugald.
In 1981 someone in the family acquired a McColm family tree from the United States. It consisted of instructions on how to research one's family tree, some blank pages and a list of McColm names and addresses in the United States. It was really a scam but it turned out to be useful to me. On looking through the address list I noted that many of these people were clustered in several areas of the US. I decided to write a standard form letter telling them who I was looking for and send it to one person in each one of these clusters. I received a variety of replies. In the process I learned that one McColm family immigrated to the US sometime before 1800 and most US McColms are descendants of that original family. However, I still had not located any of the descendants of our family. To some of my letters I had received no replies. So I sent a second letter to a different person in those particular areas where I had not received a reply to my original inquiry. In response to this second round of letters I received more replies including one from a family member.
In March, 1981 Mrs Ruby Gladys McColm Grobe wrote to me from Rockport, Texas. She wrote that her grandfather McColm had three sons: William Wiley McColm, John Thomas McColm (b. Dec. 25, 18?; d. Mar.5, 1931) and Lewis Oliver McColm (b. May 24, 1879; d. Sept.4,1949). William and John may have been born in Missouri and Lewis was born in Waxahacie (about 10 or 15 miles south of Dallas), Ellis County, Texas. Only Lewis married and he had eleven children of which Ruby was the fourth child. She said that my first letter had been passed on to her by one of her brothers and she and her husband had planned on coming up to New Richmond for a visit but that was no longer possible. After receiving my first letter they had sold their business and were winding up their affairs when her husband had a heart attack on March 2, 1981 and died. She said in closing that "we have always known that our ancestors came from Scotland to New Richmond in the province of Quebec, but that is about all we knew. Uncle John who died in 1931 corresponded with a cousin named John Thomas McColm in New Richmond." I expect he corresponded with "Jack Tom" (I,F,1). I sent her some information about her branch of the family, for which she thanked me and we corresponded no more. She had promised in her last letter to find out what her grandfather's first name was but never did. I never heard from the descendants of the other sibling. However, someone later told me that Dugald lived in Kellogg, Idaho and had two daughters, Effie and Mildred. Mildred lived in Wallace, Idaho and had three sons born in 1920, 1922 and 1926. Effie married a Richardson and had one son Floyd. She apparently lived "15 miles from Mildred".
William R. "Bill" McColm
June 2001