HE made headlines all over the world as one of the stars of the Rio Olympics.

And the Olympian, one of the most famous sportsmen in the world, has his roots in Muirkirk.

Swimmer Michael Phelps’ ancestors left the hardy world of mining when they emigrated to the USA in 1860.

Working in the horrific conditions below the East Ayrshire surface, often risking their lives, it gave them a survival instinct and steely determination to succeed.

Those attributes have enabled the tough 30-year-old American to become the most successful Olympian in history, more than 150 years later.

It is thought that his higher than average lung capacity is a legacy from when his forefathers needed powerful lungs to breathe in the stifling atmosphere underground.

The story began in the 1850s when miner John Dick, who worked in and around Muirkirk met Mary Bane in the village.

When they had a son, Thomas, without being married, John was ordered to visit the local church where he was reprimanded by the minister.

After leaving Muirkirk, the young family lived in the mid-Atlantic state of Maryland, where John returned to his trade to work as a miner in Lonaconing.

Hundreds of Scots settled in the area, with a recent census revealing that one in six residents have roots in Scotland, giving Lonaconing the title of most Scottish town in the US.

Thomas married Margaret Schuyler in 1872, and the couple went on to have 10 children, one of who was Michael’s great-grandmother Agnes Schuyler Dick.

She married Felix Foote in 1906 and the couple had Phelps’s grandmother Leoma Foote in 1919, before Phelps’s mother, Deborah Sue Davisson, was born.

In a tragic accident Thomas, Micheal Phelps’ great-great-grandad – died in 1907 as a result of an overdose of painkillers — he and wife Margaret are buried at Oak Hill cemetery in Lonaconing.

Deborah is now a middle school principal, while her ex-husband, Michael Fred Phelps, is a retired State Trooper who played American football for the Washington Redskins in the 1970s.

Michael is the youngest of their three children, but the couple divorced in 1994, when he was nine years old, and his father remarried in 2000.

His haul of 28 Olympic medals includes 23 golds, which the 6ft 3in swimmer earned by showing the same characteristics as his Muirkirk mining family.

During one of his rare visits back home, he played in a golf tournament in Fife where he sank a massive 159ft putt.

Cumnock Chronicle correspondent Jim Currie, who writes our weekly Muirkirk News column, spoke of his surprise when he heard of the Phelps connection.

There are still a few Bains, a name possibly derived from Bane, in the village and surrounding areas, who may well also be distant relatives of the American swimming superstar.

Mr Currie said: “It came as a total surprise to hear about Michael Phelps having his roots in Muirkirk, but it is always good to see the village having good news.

“There are probably relations still in the area, just as our most renowned resident Bill Shankly has, but what the news about Phelps does is highlight that every place has produced people who have gone on to do great things.

“Why such a small area like ours has so many I don’t know, but there is no escaping that we have produced people like Bill Shankly and his brothers, and Eric Caldow who played for Rangers and Scotland.

“There is also Isabel Pagan a well known poet who is buried in Muirkirk, as is John Lapraik, a friend of Rabbie Burns and who our annual festival is named after.”