But Mary Burgess, wife of Jermiah McDonald, was probably not the mother of my John McDonald but the mother of the other John McDonald which would make it even worse, no? The other John McDonald, son of Jeremiah was born about 1822 which would have made Mary 55., very doubtful. Lots of people seem to have promulgated an error. I doubt that Mary Burgess was really the other John's mother. She may have been my John's mother but in that case she would not have been Jermiah's wife. Let's get cracking on that time machine so we can straighten all this out.