IN June 2008, a Boeing 727 with "Trump" emblazoned in gold across the fuselage touched down on the asphalt at Stornoway airport. For only the second time in his life, Donald Trump had come to the home of his mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, who left Lewis aged just 18.

Outside a modest, pebble-dashed house in the village of Tong, Trump, his bouffant hair struggling in the Hebridean breeze, told reporters: “I feel very comfortable here. I think I do feel Scottish.” Despite such declarations of affection for his maternal land, Trump spent just 97 seconds inside his mother’s birthplace.

Trump is again planning to visit Scotland in the coming weeks – perhaps as soon as early June, following the reopening of his Turnberry golf course – but the Republican presidential nominee elect has never been back to Lewis.

On the campaign trail Trump has talked about keeping immigrants out of the US – from building walls at the Mexican border to banning Muslims – rather than his own immigrant story.

But "The Donald" owes a lot more to Lewis than he lets on, including his given name, and, as the Sunday Herald discovered on a recent visit, perhaps even his trademark flame-coloured coiffure.

“Emigration has always been part of life here,” says Harris-based genealogist Bill Lawson as he looks through Mary Anne MacLeod’s family tree. MacLeod was born in May 1912. Growing up with nine siblings was tough. Each member of the household would have been expected to help run the house and work the land.

By the 1920s, Lewis’ economy was in tatters, the herring industry decimated by unlikely twin blows of the Russian revolution and American prohibition. Salted Hebridean fish had been a popular bar snack. Successive harvests had failed, too. In 1930, MacLeod left for New York aboard the Scottish-built Transylvania, according to Ellis Island records.

Lawson’s own research paints a vivid picture of the family young Mary Anne MacLeod left behind. All but one of her grandparents were born in Tong – including, Donald Smith, who died in 1868 when a squall overturned his boat while fishing off Vatisker Point. His widow, Mary, was left to run the family croft, a small farm holding, and bring up their children. The youngest in the family was Mary MacLeod, Trump’s grandmother, who died in 1963, aged 96.

Did Trump got his name from great grandfather Smith? “That’s very possible,” says Lawson. “Donald is a very common name on Lewis. That is why we still don’t shout on the street in Stornoway, “Donald MacLeod” because you would get 40 of them turning around.”

As we continue along the family line Lawson happens upon a surprising discovery: Trump’s great-great grandfather, Alasdair MacLeod was known by everyone as “Ruadh,” or “Red,” on account of his hair - perhaps the source of Trump’s own infamous mop (which was more reddish-brown than lurid yellow in his younger days). “Red hair is very common on the islands,” Lawson said. “Almost everyone in the island, you trace back their DNA [and] you come to a Viking.”

Trump might have got his highlights from Lewis but few on the island are rooting for a President Trump come November. Most islanders view Trump’s presidential candidacy with a mix of wry amusement and embarrassment. The fact that so many here call him “Domhnall Iain”—the Gaelic for his first and middle name - is a mark of disparagement, not endearment.

“Donald Trump’s lifestyle would not be compatible with his background on the island,” says Reverend James Maciver, a Free Church minister who grew up near the MacLeod home in Tong. Lewis is not quite the Calvinist bailiwick of stereotype, but traditional values still hold sway. Which is bad news for a thrice-married adulterer who made much of his fortune in casinos.

“It’s not that he has made it big in financial terms—it’s how he has done it. It’s the kind of devil-may-care attitude. It doesn’t matter what happens to people as long as he gets what he wants. That doesn’t sit well with the mentality on the island,” Maciver added.

Many on Lewis visibly wince at the word ‘Trump’ – unsurprising given some of the media coverage of his island roots. A BBC Newsnight report earlier this year featured the Father Ted theme tune and mispronounced the word ‘Gaelic’.

Trump still has family on the island. Two of those cousins, William and Alasdair Murray, still live in the MacLeod family home in Tong – but neither is keen to chat.

“I’m not talking to journalists,” says William, 76, said with an almost apologetic shake of his head as he slowly closed the door. The response is the same across the street, where another Trump cousin, Calum MacLeod lives with his wife in a bungalow surrounded by a high hedge.

“They are good people, but they are fed up with people asking about Trump,” a local shop owner told me.

One person who is happy to talk Trump is Derick Mackenzie, who set up the Facebook page “Isle of Lewis supports Trump for President” (94 likes at the time of writing). “I think he is honest. Honesty is rare today – especially amongst politicians,” Mackenzie told me. “He supports the Bible. The reason our world is in moral and economic ruin today is because we in the West have over time thrown the Bible away. This is fatal.”

Mary Anne regularly returned to Lewis before her death in New York, in 2000, aged 88. Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a senior judge, has visited dozens of times and is well liked. Last year she donated £160,000 to a care home and hospice in Stornoway.

But many believe that Trump only came to Tong in 2008 because he was trying to garner public support for his controversial Aberdeen golf course, which was eventually built after the Scottish Government stepped in to overrule the local council.

“The family have had a genuine, long-term relationship with here,” says Gaelic broadcaster Kenny MacIver. “Donald? No. Until it was of some use to him, he had no interest.” The exact details of Trump's visit to Scotland this summer are still unclear, but few on Lewis are expecting him to call in on his family in Tong.