In a few hours a new Miss World
will be crowned by Megan Young, last year’s Miss World winner.
Megan Young added another first
for the Philippines when she won for the country the crown of Miss World in
2013. Though the Philippines placed several times in this pageant in the past
this was the first time that the country got the coveted title. By winning the
crown this also completed the country’s possession of the major beauty titles
of the world: Miss Universe, Miss International, Miss Earth, and finally, Miss
World.
It was no wonder that the
missosologists in the Philippines trumpeted this victory far and wide. But
Filipinos were not the only ones who were overjoyed with Young’s victory.
Because Megan Young was half-Filipino and half-American people from the United
States were also claiming her victory as their own. Just as Filipinos love to
claim anyone in the world who has done something unique or who has won any type
of award or title no matter how small the Filipino ancestry, so are Americans
also happy to claim Megan Young as their own considering several things: she
was born in the United States, she carries an American last name, and her
family still lives in the US.
Although I would have loved to
trace her maternal, Filipino family tree to celebrate the beauty and
empowerment of women as well as her turning over the title of Miss World to her
successor, records are a little scarce for the moment so I have decided to
trace her paternal grandmother’s side, which has quite a lot of available
information online.
Megan Lynne Young was born to
Victoria Talde, a Filipina whose roots are from Pandan, Antique, and Calvin
Cole Young III. Calvin’s parents, Calvin Young, Jr. and Ella McCaleb, live in
Natchez, Mississippi. The McCaleb’s roots are very deep and prominent in
Mississippi, and before that to South Carolina and even before that to
Scotland, where they belonged to several important clans.
The earliest of Ella McCaleb’s
known ancestor is William MacKillop who was born in Loch Aber, Scotland in
1695. He married Mary McDonnell McDonald of the Keppoch Clan. The McKillips
were believed to be a branch of the Keppoch Clan, thus making him a relative of
his wife Mary. The family believe that
the earliest McCalebs were probably Roman Catholic and were opposed to the
Tudor rulers of England. Both the McKillip and McDonnell clans fought in the battles
to return Bonnie Prince Charles to the throne of England.
One of their sons, William Neil
McKillip, born in 1715, married Sarah McAlpin, who was the daughter of a
highland chieftain of the McAlpin clan. Some traditions of the family suggest
that William Neil and Sarah eloped to Dublin, Ireland. Whatever the truth,
William Neil (McKillip) McCaleb and his wife Sarah were the first McCalebs to
set foot in the American colonies in 1746. They landed in South Carolina
together with other exiled supporters of Bonnie Prince Charles.
It was William Neil’s and Sarah’s
son William McCaleb, who settled in Mississippi and founded the line that has
given birth to Megan Young. William married Ann Mackey and they had five
children. According to the family’s official history: “William McCaleb served
as Captain in the patriot army in the Revolutionary War under Generals Marion
and Pickins. He commanded a company of Hussars or Horse of the 91st Militia,
South Carolina Line. He participated in the battles of Camden, the Cowpens,
Eutaw Springs, Ninety-Six, the siege of Charleston and Guilford Court House.
“William McCaleb and his family
were living in the Pendleton District of South Carolina in 1784. William
McCaleb and Wade Hampton represented the South of Saluda District at the South
Carolina Convention which ratified the Federal Constitution.
“Later, in 1799, William McCaleb
and his family moved from the Pendleton District, S.C. to Mississippi, settling
on the Bayou Pierre, Claiborne County, Mississippi and served as a member of
the territorial legislature of Mississippi.”
From the Horstman Family webpage
where the McCaleb genealogy is extensively discussed, the earliest ancestor in
the webpage is John McCaleb, son of William and Ann. John McCaleb married Maria
Collins and had 3 children. One of these 3 was James Franklin McCaleb, who
married Sophie Washington Moore. One of their children, Douglas Bisland
McCaleb, married Louisa Witherspoon Robson, whose son, Sydney Briscoe McCaleb,
is the father of Ella McCaleb-Young.
 |
| Ella McCaleb-Young and her husband, grandparents of Miss World 2013 Megan Young (from the Natchez Democrat website) |
In one news article after Megan
Young’s coronation, Ella McCaleb Young was interviewed and she and her husband
Calvin couldn’t stop being so proud about their granddaughter. Truly, though
Megan Young won the title of Miss World for the Philippines, her American side
has every right to claim her victory as theirs. From a Pinoy genealogist’s
point of view, the genealogy of Megan Young just goes to prove that while our
genes are spreading to almost every corner of the globe, the same can also be
said of other nationalities marrying into our citizens. As the world grows
smaller and smaller, so do families become more intertwined and intermingled with
one another.
Sources:
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