• General Notes

  T
  he progenitors of the Houston-McMillan family in South Africa were John and Sarah Ann Houston.  John, the son of John McMillan and Mary McIntyre, was born at Cardyhouse, Kilmun in 1822.1 Kilmun is a settlement on the north shore of the Holy Loch in Argyll and Bute in south-west Scotland.*  John grew up in Kilmun and on 12th December 1849 married Sarah Ann Sykes at Gretna Green.2  Sarah Ann, who was born in Lancaster on 27th August 1830, was the daughter of Solomon Sykes and Eliza Gregson. 3
  
  John and Sarah were married at Gretna Green on 12th December 1849.**  Their first son, John Solomon, was born in Durban on 4 October 1850, and thus they must have arrived in Natal some time in the middle of 1850.  According to a number of family sources John and Sarah were bound for Australia, but because John was so seasick they disembarked in Durban.  This belief is supported by the fact that John had a book in his possession entitled A Voyage to New South Wales written in 1787.
  
  The family surname is a source of some confusion.  John was born a McMillan***, but by the time the family arrived in Natal they were calling themselves Houston.  It is not clear why this was so.  There are a number of colourful family legends for the reasons why John changed his name; one being that he did so to escape Britain after killing or badly wounding a man in a duel. He could also have changed his name when he and Sarah ran away to be married at Gretna Green.  By the last three decades of the nineteenth century various branches of the family had begun to incorporate McMillan with Houston.

Details of John's family with Mary McIntyre