(died 18 April 1899, aged 55), early woman office-holder. Born probably in Cornwall, Ont. Parents: Alexander Eugene Macdonald and his wife Grace Mackay Taylor. Alexander Eugene (1806-1891), the father of the subject of this sketch, was a native of Glen Nevis, GC, and lived in Cornwall, where he was deputy clerk of the Crown and registrar of the Surrogate Court. Alexander Eugene was the nephew of Fr Aeneas Macdonald, of Fr John Macdonald of St. Raphael’s, and of Dr Roderick Mcdonald. Helen MacDonald was the brother of General Sir Donald A. Macdonald.

     In 1891, Helen MacDonald became registrar of the Surrogate Court in succession to her father, and she held this position to the end of her life. On the SDG Surrogate Court transcript of the Hon. Donald A. (Sandfield) Macdonald’s will she signed as “Helen MacDonald, Registrar of the Surrogate Court of the United Counties of Stormont Dundas and Glengarry.” After her death, John A. McDougald succeeded her as registrar of the Surrogate Court. She was unmarried. Place of death: Cornwall. Though not a Glengarrian, she had important GC connections. Remarkably, she was a woman office-holder at a time when it was unusual to find a woman in such a role, and when the limited number of such jobs available made the pressure from males to obtain them immense (the pressures, it may be guessed, were rather greater in SDG even than elsewhere in the province).

Cornwall Freeholder & Glengarry News both 21 April 1899 * ASC ii, 5: obituary (NP) of her father * Harkness 419 (family name stated as McDonell)