A renowned genealogist on the Isle of Lewis says the number of people contacting him about Donald Trump to find out if they are a distant relative has plummeted.
That’s in stark contrast to the last time the US president-elect was in power between 2017 and 2021 – when he was inundated with a “flurry” of requests.
The genealogy resource at Hebrides People, known as ‘Cò Leis Thu?’, is based on over 60 years of research by Bill Lawson.
One of the most requested searches he has been asked to do is to find out if Donald Trump was a distant relative.
Known on the islands as Dòmhnall Iain or Donald John, Mr Trump’s mum, Mary Anne Smith MacLeod could trace her ancestors back to the 1700s.
It would have gone back further – but there are fewer written records before that time.
Mary Anne was born on May 10 1912 and was alive at the time of the Iolaire disaster.
Generations of people went from the Western Isles to America, like the then Miss MacLeod and almost all of her nine siblings.
Mr Lawson explained: “At the last US election when Donald Trump won we were flooded with people from all over the world wanting to know if they were related to Trump.
“Of course, half the island will be related to him, if not as a first cousin then as a distant cousin, maybe a fifth cousin.
“There was so much unpleasant interest in the family.
“But people are not so interested this time. We have not been asked very much at all.”
Trump’s family left the islands
He said so many people left the islands, like Mary Anne Macleod because “The sheer assumption was that if you stayed at home you were some sort of failure.
“That has changed so much with technology, you can stay at home on the islands and you can still do what you want. It is easy to run a business and be successful.”
Mary Anne immigrated to the U.S. in 1930 and became a naturalized citizen in March 1942. She married Fred Trump, a then-property developer, in 1936.
The couple were multi-millionaires and very much the centre of New York society.
Mr Lawson said that people often contacted him looking for some sort of “scandal”, about Mr Trump and his family on the islands.
But there is none to be found.
Mary Anne MacLeod Trump and her daughter are the ‘real heroes’
Mary Anne and her daughter Maryanne Trump Barry, a federal court judge, visited the islands countless times to see family.
He said: “They are the real heroes here, they funded Bethesda House, a nursing home on the islands, and people will be forever grateful to them for that.
“Mary Anne and her daughter are the people that we want to celebrate. They are the people that islanders know.”
He continued: “She and her daughter were pretty well-liked for the help she gave.
In contrast, Trump has visited twice, once as a child aged three or four, and then for a “90-second photo shoot” in 2008.
Mary Anne’s family lived at Tong, pronounced Tongue, on the island, and as well as fishing and farming ran a small Post Office from the kitchen of their croft.
The village is some nine miles from Stornoway, where Mary Anne would have gone to secondary school.
Mr Lawson said: “There were ordinary crofter people, a large family living off the land of seven acres.
“Almost all of the 10 children went to America.”
Islands had a ‘dearth of possible husbands’
“We can see from records that there were plenty of men and then a generation of men missing after the first war.”
Mr Lawson continued: “So for Mary Anne and her sisters there was a dearth of possible husbands.
“There wasn’t poverty there when you think of the life they led in comparison to others on the islands, but the horizons for people were low.
“There was an expected domestic life that was the norm.”
Mr Lawson said: “It must have been a monumental change going from the croft to New York. But she learned to survive, and thrive, in New York.
“She is quite incredible.”
Asked if Mr Trump would have survived on the islands, Mr Lawson said: “I think on the island you were kept in your place. They would have laughed at some of his ideas.”
Mary Anne MacLeod Trump died aged 88 in 2000. Maryanne Trump Barry died in 2023 aged 86.
When she died The Stornoway Gazette published a family notice.
It read: “Peacefully in New York on 7th August, Mary Ann Trump, aged 88 years. Daughter of the late Malcolm and Mary MacLeod, 5 Tong. Much missed.”
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