I worked several years on this book when events intervened and the project laid dormant for months. When I picked it back up, I realized that the stack of research notes was overwhelming, especially considering the data collected on individual families. The book also refused to reach completion as more and more information required ever more revision and editing. Finally, I decided to self-publish a single book at a time,. That way, I had hard copies unfolding--I didn't need to start from scratch every time a month went by when I wasn't in a research library.

So, the first book was very incomplete. The family section was huge and fragmentary. The beginning was acceptable, although more historical elaboration was needed, and the section on the churches needed editing. The table of contents was unfinished of course, the section on the Methodist and Baptist churches was just a title, and most of the family data was incomplete. After the section on genealogy, I intended to include a few pages detailing how the families were/are related, but this had to wait for later books. The Allan family was the only complete family section, and served as a template as other families were completed.

If you have information to share, especially about your family history, please contact me. There is so much data here that there are likely many unintended errors. I apologize up front about that, and hope that further books will contain corrections.

Individual family genealogists, working on the same family trees elaborated here, have traced their Scottish roots back through the first pioneers. To my knowledge, there has been no coordinated effort to understand how all these Scottish families showed up in this thickly wooded region of Michigan within a few years of each other. This book is my best effort to tie these families together within a historical context. It was great fun doing the research for the book as well as assembling the puzzle pieces into a coherent story.

As this book approaches two hundred pages, it is dawning on me that it may eventually have to evolve into two volumes, the second focusing solely on family histories.

This third book is much enriched by the addition of the memoirs, letters, and family reunion records of the pioneering Paton family. Annie Allan Paton and her brothers and sisters were an articulate, passionate lot. We are blessed many times over for the stories and reflections they left us. Every family represented in the Scottish Settlement can look at these Paton recollections and see their own family reflected back. Chances are pretty good that we are all related, one way or another, to the Paton clan. There were twenty kids! The Patons have far more letters and records than I was able to assemble here. Perhaps in future editions I will be able to include more from the Paton archives.

That was written in 1902. Imagine how many more Patons populate the earth as I write this in 2012. They intermarried in Scotland and then in the Scottish Settlement during the second half of the 1800's. I know for a fact that they are related to the Hamiltons, Muirs, Allans, Robinsons, and McKails, but it was an overwhelming task to research the grandchildren and all the great grandkids and who they married. It's pretty clear, though, that if you had relatives in the Scottish Settlement, you are related to all the rest of us who have relatives in the Settlement--see the section called "Are you related to the Scottish Settlers?"

The section on the Civil War was greatly enriched by the addition of Annie Allan Paton's and her brother John Paton's personal accounts; I placed their stories throughout the text to make it more personal.

This volume is also special to me because for the first time I added my own Wallace family to the book. In the process, I found out that I was related to the Wallaces of Craigie who were descendants of the Uncle of William Wallace, the Scottish patriot--hero from the 1200's. I also discovered a wonderful direct quote from a memoir written by the Downie family in which I found the statement "We used to play with the Wallace boys, who were descended from the great William Wallace." I also found that my GGG Grandfather, David Wallace lived on the farm next to the pioneer William Wallace. This was important to me because I was struggling to find the family connection that linked David with William. The fact that David came from Scotland to take up residence next to William and his family strongly suggests a family tie--I have yet to climb over that brick wall but I am getting closer.

In this edition, I added chaper headings which help visually break up summary sections. The chapter on the churches continues to grow, and there is still work left to do. I added census records, listing those people who were identified as being born in Scotland. These census lists are at the beginning of each township chapter. With each book, I add details for more families. There are still many families with no entries, although I have records and information ready to be added when I get the long stretch of time needed to do data entry.

There are many more pictures in this book. I added maps, a few family photos, and some family crest images--we shall see how clear they came out--I fear some will have too low a resolution and have to be deleted in the next book.

I self-publish a book every time I get nervous that too much new material has been added--material that could electronically disappear with a computer crash. I am using a publishing program that is always in Beta (Booksmart, from Blurb.com). I love this company and have many personal books that I am totally happy with. However, Booksmart is a photobook publishing software program--it is not designed to handle the volume of text that I am generating. Consequently, the software crashes periodically and I lose whatever I was working on! Very frustrating--so I publish these single books for peace of mind . . . If you happen to know how I could get this book into print through a publisher, please let me know.