Shane,

My name is John R Vickers. My 2nd Great Grandfather was John Borrowman. John's parents were William Borrowman & Marion Hanna. William & Marion emigrated from Glasgow, Lanark, Scotland to Middleville, Lanark, Ontario.

As to the relation to the MacGregors, we too have the story handed down, but my research has not found the tie-in. Several years ago I did hear from a lady that had been connected to one of the MacGregor Clan groups with a possible tie-in.

She said that the MacGregors (among other clans, but the MacGregors in particular) rebelled against the government (English?) for whatever reason. After the rebellion was put down the clan name was outlawed with punishment being death!

As long as they stayed up in the highlands they were relatively safe, but if they ventured to come down to the lowlands they were forced to 'change their name'. One of the names chosen was Barrowman or Borrowman (vital records seem to use these interchangeably).

One story of the 'origin' of the name is that these lowland MacGregors who lived in the towns (or barrows) were thus called barrowmen.

Another story is that these MacGregors were well-known borrowers and thus became known as borrowmen.

My Dad told me this story: A MacGregor (my Dad said it was Rob Roy MacGregor himself but the Borrowmans/Barrowmans go back at least 3-4 generations before he was born) inquired of a government official, "If my name is outlawed then by which name should I go?" The government official replied, "I don't care. Go out and borrow a man's name!"

The lady I referred to earlier said she had received two other inquiries to this connection, one of which said that their MacGregor-Borrowman/Barrowman ancestor had come from Scandenavia(Norway/Sweden/Denmark) where he had fled to when the name was outlawed.

So you see this is a very tenious but known and beloved thread that at this point can not be proven.

I hope that this helps.

John R Vickers