Fraser Highlander and early Scottish settler in Québec
William Ross was born around 1732 at Geanies, near Tain in Easter Ross. He is believed to have been the son of Alexander Ross and Helen Bayne of Tullich, though the surviving evidence for this remains uncertain.
In the late 1750s, Ross enlisted in the 78th Fraser Highlanders, a regiment raised in the Highlands during the Seven Years’ War. He sailed for North America in 1757 and served throughout the campaign. He was present at the capture of Louisbourg (1758) and later took part in the campaign against Québec in 1759. During this period, he was wounded at the Battle of Montmorency and again during the fighting around Québec.
Following the war, Ross remained in Canada after his discharge in 1763. He settled along the lower St Lawrence and, in 1764, married Marie-Josephte Proulx at Pointe-aux-Trembles (Montmagny). Together they established a family in the region, and Ross became part of a wider community of former Highland soldiers who made permanent homes in Québec.
In later life, he appears to have held a role connected to navigation on the St Lawrence and is described in some records as bilingual, reflecting his integration into French-speaking society.
William Ross died in 1808 and was buried in the parish of Saint-Germain, Rimouski. His descendants spread widely across Québec and beyond, forming part of a large and well-documented Scottish-Canadian lineage.
Today, many of those descendants continue to trace their origins back to Easter Ross, and a significant number visit Tain and the surrounding area in search of their ancestral roots. In this way, William Ross’s story remains a living link between the Highlands and Canada, with his family’s history still returning, in a sense, to the place where it began.