When Rachael McDonald was born on 10 September 1760, in Pennsylvania, British Colonial America, her father, John Angus McDonald, was 33 and her mother, Johanna Thompson, was 20. She married Andrew Ross Nye about 1779, in Smithfield, Fayette, Pennsylvania, United States. They were the parents of at least 6 sons and 5 daughters. She died on 16 December 1847, in Ellwood City, Lawrence, Pennsylvania, United States, at the age of 87, and was buried in Beaver, Pennsylvania, United States.