Anna Jane MacLean MacMillan

Island story

Anna Jane MacLean MacMillan belonged to the MacLean and MacMillan families of Pictou Island. In the 1901 census she appears as Annie J. McLean, age nine, in family 10 with her parents Hugh “Big Hughie” McLean and Mary McLean. Hugh’s 1910 will independently names daughter Annie Jane. In 1911 she appears as Mary’s married daughter while William MacMillan is recorded as Mary’s son-in-law, and later census and civil records identify Anna Jane MacLean with Donald William “Billy” MacMillan and their large family. Their children included Arnold, Charles Elwood, Lorne/Loran and Ethel Dophney among nine children documented in family records. The Church Cemetery memorial at C-010 records her as Jane Ann, 1891–1971; PIHS preserves Annie Jane, Anna Jane and Jane Ann as source variants for one person. Their original marriage is recorded at Pictou on 9 December 1910: Donald William was 23, with parents Angus and Anna, and Anna Jane was 18, Island-born, with parents Hugh and Mary. Her original death registration records her death at Pictou on 10 December 1971, widow of the late William MacMillan, and reports a 10 June 1891 Nova Scotia birth. It names Hughie MacLean and maiden mother Mary MacLean and identifies Charles MacMillan explicitly as her son. The reported birth differs by about a year from the marriage age; the certificate’s provincial birthplace is not an exact Island birthplace. Its report that her mother was Nova Scotia-born conflicts with Mary’s PEI records. Island burial is recorded in December 1971, but the handwritten day is not certified. The 1921 census records the widowed Mrs Mary MacLean in William and Anna Jane’s household as William’s mother-in-law. That household description is consistent with Anna Jane’s already established MacLean family; it does not make Mary a parent in William’s natal family.