Friends of the Somme - Mid Ulster Branch  
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Updates for Private Robert Alexander McDonald
Date Information
12/05/2020 01380
19/03/2016 McDonald missing since 1st July 1916, now officially reported killed on that date or since. Deeply regretted by his sorrowing wife and three children, Tyanee, Portglenone.
19/03/2016 From the Northern Constitution dated 28th July 1917:
19/03/2016 Robert and Ellen had three children and lived at Tyanee, Portglenone.
19/03/2016
20/01/2016 Private McDonald has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.
20/01/2016 Robert Alexander McDonald was born on 25th April 1888 in Tyanee, Upperlands, County Londonderry.
20/01/2016 The 1901 census lists Robert as age 12 living with the McGall family (his aunt and uncle) at house 15 in Tyanee, Claudy, County Londonderry. Robert was still at school.
20/01/2016 Robert Alexander McDonald married Ellen Wallace on 2nd October 1908 in the district of Magherafelt.
20/01/2016 Robert and Ellen had a son called Robert William, born 29th October 1908.
20/01/2016 The 1911 census lists Bob Alexander as age 23 living with his family at house 30 in Tyanee, Clady, County Londonderry Robert was an agricultural labourer and Ellen was an embroiderer.
20/01/2016 Robert Alexander McDonald was the son of Robert and Mary McDonald. Robert McDonald married Mary McGall on 13th July 1887 in Ballymena.
20/01/2016 Private Robert McDonald was serving with the 10th Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers when he was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on Saturday 1st July 1916. He was 28 years old.
20/01/2016 Private McDonald is also commemorated on his family’s headstone in St Nossonus, Tamlaght O’Crilly Lower Graveyard. The gravestone records that Ellen McDonald died 21st June 1973, aged 86. Their son, Robert William McDonald, died 7th May 1993 aged 83 years.
20/01/2016 The CWGC record Private Robert Alexander McDonald as the son of Robert McDonald and the late Mary McGall McDonald. He is also listed as the husband of Ellen McDonald, of Tyanee, Co. Derry.
20/01/2016 Robert enlisted in Donegal.
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