On page 9 of her book “James McDonald – Sarah Ferguson, Their Progenitors, Their Posterity” Ila Maughan quoted from a letter by a professional genealogist living in Great Britain named Brian Leese. “I would point out the christening in Belfast in 1788 of John, son of Moses and Grace McDonald. It does seem likely that this couple were also the parents of Moses McDonald of Belfast who was born in 1774. There is however no proof. I only point this out because of the unusual name of Moses. I can only suggest that the patron record them on a family group sheet and submit it for clearance on a ‘relative’ basis as nothing more definite can be done. A charge of $75.00 has been made for this research.”
Ila Maughan wrote “Could this newly found Moses McDonald be the father of our Moses McDonald who married Mary Glass? He very well could have been, We feel that he was.” When I read Brian Leese’s report I am startled by the glaring lack of documentation. Brian Leese cites no source for his 1788 Belfast christening record of a John listing his father as Moses McDonald and mother as Grace McDonald. Family History research has come a long way since 1958. Ila Maughan would have loved to see our day with everything literally at our fingertips that she had to write to a “professional” for and trust his “results”. The Internet now makes it possible for anyone in the world to access christening records of Belfast. The records are listed as the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI). The records have been gathered, microfilmed & digitized so most are available through www.FamilySearch.org.
Today anyone can search the original church records from 1788 Belfast, Ireland. They are listed by the different church denominations. In 17th century Ireland there was constant turmoil after The Wars of the Three Kingdoms and subsequent British government imposing the Anglican Church of Ireland as the State Church. Catholics (the vast majority), Baptists, Presbyterians and Methodists were subject to the State Church. I looked in PRONI for the record that Brian Leese described, but neglected to give any source. Not only did he fail to cite which church, but he claimed both the father & mother were listed on the christening record. Not one of the records I searched listed both the mother & father. Almost all records listed only the father. A very few listed only the mother, but never listed both. The records are listed by date and listed the child’s given name and one parent’s given & surname. There is a record of a John born to a Moses McDonald in 1788, but that could not be our Moses {who would have been 10). Brian Leese jumped to an unwarranted & unverified assumption that this 1788 Moses was our Moses McDonald’s father. There is a record of the Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church in Belfast of a 1768 christening of Mary Cunningham with the parent listed as John McDonald (FHL Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church Book B page 41) and christenings of a James in the Carnmoney Presbyterian Church of Belfast on Sept. 7, 1776 and a Moses on Aug. 30, 1778 both listing John McDonnald (both spelled with two n’s) as parent (FHL film #258575). Documented christening of Moses in 1778 and his father was John McDonnald (double n was a common spelling in Ireland & Scotland).
Brian Leese was wrong about Moses’ father and provided no documentation of Moses’ mother being Grace Maxwell. The entire Moses-Moses-James-James-Aenaeus line was contrived along with the Maxwell link to royal lines. Thousands of descendants of James McDonald & Sarah Ferguson received from the McDonald Family Organization and contributed thousands of Four Generation Family Group Sheets in the 1960’s with this spurious line that were later incorporated into Ancestory.com. This line is without documentation and, in fact been proven to not be in Belfast christenings. Further research done by Brian Leese is also shown to be at best inaccurate and at worst fraudulent.
Brian Leese’s logic began with an assumption that the original recorder meant to write “James, child of James McDonald” when he wrote, “Jane child of James McDonald”. He said, “The register did NOT state daughter. It reads “Jane child of James Mc.Donald.” He provided no film or file number so considerable searching was necessary by Mary Ann McDonald to locate the original which she discovered to be PRONI mic 583/10 Blaris Church of Ireland Marriages 1690-1720 and 1735-1739.
Ila Maughan included in her book quotes from letters from Brian Leese, a professional genealogist living in Great Britain before the Internet.
This is a hand written copy of the Blaris parish register by Mary Ann McDonald when she was in Belfast. It does not say “Jane child of James McDonald. There is a clear “D” (for daughter) and the sons are clearly and consistently marked with an “s”(for son). Brian Leese either never actually viewed the Blaris parish document or intentionally misquoted the parish register to mislead his clients. Thus his proposed “link” to a Maxwell pedigree that extended back multiple generations is not there. There is no document linking Moses McDonald to another Moses whose father was James. Brian Leese’s “opinion” that the record saying Jane meant to say James son of James McDonald demonstrates how inaccurate, if not actually deceptive, Brian Leese’s research reports were.
The next undocumented premise of Brian Leese was that an Aeneas McDonald was the father of James and our ancestor. He then proposed that the connection between “our Aeneas” 
and the main stem of the Earls of Antrim may be found in Glenarm Castle. Forty years ago Ila Maughan didn’t have the Internet and couldn’t click on the above link to Glenarm Castle history to see the inconsistencies of Brian Leese’s proposal. Glenarm was the residence of The 14th Earl of Antrim in 1972. It is not likely Brian Leese could obtain permission to “search” the Earl’s residence. Even if he had permission he didn’t seem to know Glenarm castle had been destroyed by fire twice since the 17th century and was extremely unlikely to have rent records or documents pertaining to our 17th century ancestors. Page two of his letter is a hand copied pedigree of the Earls of Antrim right out of a 1904 published history of Clan Donald which is currently available at the LDS Family History Library (but was not yet available in 1972). All three volumes are now available on line. They are The Clan Donald Vol. I, Vol. II, and Vol. III.
There never was a need to search Glenarm castle, which in 1972 was the residence of Alexander, 14th Earl of Antrim. His ancestors were granted the right to take the name McDonnel and the title of Earl of Antrim because there were no surviving male heirs. Brian Leese promised a fairy tale, complete with castle, if compensated for his “great search” of Glenarm castle for records he had available in a published Clan history.
Other family organizations that hired Brian Leese discovered the liberties he took when citing from documents he knew had not yet been microfilmed by the LDS Church. When the originals became available the information Brian Leese stated was part of the document simply wasn’t there. The Rootsweb site for the Waldensian research warned, “…others did competent work and you shouldn’t discard their results; yet at the same time, you must not accept work by this man unless you personally view the microfilmed original records and they agree with the family group records produced from his reports. Family group records produced from his research give a statement something like this for the source of information: “research in the notarial records by Brian Leese, predating the parish registers.” Information on such a family group record is *NOT* reliable.”
Dr. Neil Thompson, attorney, professional genealogist, editor of The Genealogist and fellow of the American Society of Genealogists specializing in British and Colonial American research had this to say about Brian Leese. “Had he confined his penchant for genealogical romance to his own pedigree he would have been merely pathetic. It is unfortunate that armed with very considerable personal charm and ability with the written and spoken word, he was able to persuade hundreds of people that he or his representatives could solve genealogical problems for them in the British Isles, Italy, and even South America. Almost always these solutions have turned out to be false and misleading, requiring thousands of hours to unmask and correct.”
The problem with Brian Leese’s accounting of his research is his failure to give specific source references. He would cite “Lisburn Par Regs. (Lisburn & Blaris Parish)” without providing a specific film number or Public Record Of Northern Ireland (PRONI) file number. His failure to cite a specific source has caused many family members countless hours searching the entire record at an LDS FHL or travel to PRONI archives in Belfast. It does appear we need to prune these undocumented branches from our family tree and graft in new, documented branches. In some cases we need to take another look at other documented research previously discarded in favor of Brian Leese’s research.