IMPORTANT NOTICE
THE CLAN MACGILLIVRAY ASSOCIATION OF CANADA

Obituary For Francis Xavier McGillivary – He was the author of the book Donald A Royal Highlander.

Xavier (F.X.) McGillivary, Major (Ret’d) 1936-2025

Born in Glace Bay, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia on October 26, 1936 and died peacefully on February 11, 2025 at his winter home in Palm Harbor, Florida at the age of 88 with his loving wife of 38 years Patricia (nee Maloney) at his side. Xavier is survived by his sons James (Elaine Evans) and Andrew (Cary Sue) and grandchildren James, Kinzie (T.J.) and Andrew Xavier (Tracy) and great-grandchildren Ezra, Hudson and Abigail. He is also survived by his sister Arlene (Barry) Martin, his first wife Judy (John) Jakes and many nephews and nieces.
He was pre-deceased by his parents Bernard and Carmella (nee Currie) and siblings Thelma (Pat) Vitere, Bernard Jr. MacGillivray, Ursula (Art) Henry, Stephen (Joan) MacGillivray, Mary (Gerard) Guthro, Gloria Hanna, Sharon (Philip) Syms, and Sheila (Mardy) Lambert.
Xavier joined the RCAF in 1954 and was stationed at CFB Edmonton, NATO Moselle Air Traffic Control Centre, Metz, France and the RCAF Air Sea Rescue Coordination Centre in Vancouver. He then attended and graduated from the University of British Columbia under the Serving Airman Plan in 1968. He was commissioned as a Lieutenant and posted to CFS Sioux Lookout, Ontario and then to Ottawa in 1971. He served as a Captain with 434 Squadron at CFB Ottawa and also served several tours at National Defence Headquarters where he was promoted to Major and notably was the Editor of the Canadian Forces Personnel Newsletter. His last posting before retirement from the regular force after 35 years of proudly serving Queen and Country was at CFB Trenton. He continued to serve in the Canadian Forces Reserves for another six years. He was the recipient of the Canadian Forces Decoration, 2nd clasp and the Queen’s Jubilee medal.
In his retirement he accompanied Patricia as a dependent to CFB Baden, Santo Domingo, D.R. and to Shanghai, China where she taught school. Always very athletic from his youth, he played competitively on Canadian Forces teams wherever he was stationed, especially basketball and fastball. He also refereed high school and university basketball in Ottawa. An avid golfer, Xavier was a member of Hylands Golf Club in Ottawa for many years and he also volunteered at the Sony Open in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Xavier’s lifelong passion though was his family history and genealogy and there was nothing he enjoyed more than swapping stories. Before the advent of the internet, Xavier brought his kids to innumerable churches, cemeteries and homes of elderly people throughout Cape Breton where he would interview them for hours and carefully record his findings on index cards. He first published the family history of his branch of the McGillivary/MacGillivray Clan in 1985 with Donald MacGillivray, a soldier of the Royal Highland (Black Watch) Regiment who was mustered out in Halifax after the American War of Independence with Britain and who settled in Low Point, Cape Breton. Xavier subsequently traced Donald the soldier and three more generations back to his hometown of Nairn, Scotland. His great grandchildren are the 10th known generation in his line. He recently completed his mother’s side of the family tree; a volume on the Curries that stretches to more than 300 pages involving thousands of hours of internet assisted research.
Xavier was a warm, outgoing, loving, kind, gentle, generous and considerate man who could figure out in five minutes how he was related to you. He will be dearly missed by those who had the pleasure of knowing him.
A celebration of life in Xavier’s honour will be held in Ottawa, Ontario in the spring. RIP

CLAN MACGILLIVRAY – INTERNATIONAL

Important Notices