[2] His paternal grandparents were Sir Donald Macdonald, 3rd Baronet and Lady Mary Douglas (a daughter of the 8th Earl of Morton and Anne Villiers).

[2] Upon the death of his father in 1723, he succeeded as the 7th Baronet Macdonald, of Sleat, in the Isle of Skye, County Inverness, created in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia in 1625.

Anne was the widow of James Ogilvy, Lord Ogilvy, the eldest son and heir apparent of David Ogilvy, 3rd Earl of Airlie and Lady Grizel Lyon (a daughter the 3rd Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne)[a] Before her death on 27 November 1735, they were the parents of:[2] After her death, he married Lady Margaret Montgomerie (d. 1799) on 24 April 1739 at St. Paul's Church, Edinburgh.

[3] After James' death without issue in 1766, the baronetcy passed to his next son, Alexander, who was created Baron Macdonald in the Peerage of Ireland in 1776.

His youngest son, who was born after his death, was created a baronet in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom upon his retirement as Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1813.