My earliest known Maxwell ancestor was James Maxwell, a soldier who served under the Duke of Wellington during the Napoleonic Wars including the Battle of Waterloo. Little else is known about him. His son James Maxwell was born about 1820 and was a schoolmaster in Co. Londonderry and Co. Donegal in Northern Ireland. James Jr. married Sarah Anne Scott and their 3rd daughter Elizabeth Maxwell born in 1854 was my great-grand-mother.