Oh I'm terribly sorry, All this time I thought Hector MacNeil's version was written in 1895 because somewhere I read that's when his "Germanie Thomas" was published!
However I never looked MacNeil up, but on doing so very rapidly found that he lived from 1746 to 1818, so that info was very misleading, wherever it was I read it. Darn it. Perhaps it was the date of a later publication, and I assumed too much.
So all this time I've been foolishly following a delusion that Colonel Balfour's "Oh! my Love's in Germany" was published BEFORE Hector MacNeil's "Germanie Thomas" and was therefore more likely to be the traditional Folk version.
I'm trying to get back to the roots, but I'm inverted.
But since Balfour's of 1885 follows McNeil's of 1794, can we think Balfour's was likely to be derivative of MacNeil's? Or can we judge the two versions separately as both being possibly authentic folk versions from different parts of Scotland?
It's the roots of folk I seek.