Roots, shoots and stories

 People have lit candles for thousands of years in memory of loved ones who have died. Although I would not call myself religious, nor do I attend any church, I will still light a candle in memory of someone when I visit a church or cathedral on holiday. The act of lighting the candle and thinking about that person even for a moment or two feels good and the right thing to do. It's another way of acknowledging that they existed and that you remember them.  All of our direct ancestors deserve our candles. Without them, we wouldn't be here.  But are some individuals worth singling out? Possibly - especially if part of their story has touched you in some way  - and if, sadly, it may also have involved a candle. So for this topic, I'm going to single out my great grandmother on my paternal side, Jane Johnstone.  Jane Johnstone was born in Shotts Parish in 1829, the daughter of  grocer and tollkeeper, James Johnstone and his wife Ann. She was the second eldest of eight children,

 Nowadays most of us are members of something - a gym, a sports team, a political party, a trade union.. Our ancestors may have belonged to a trades guild, a church community, a political movement... Although it would have been great to say that I have found a suffragette or even a Jacobite rebel among my ancestors, I'm afraid I haven't as yet. What I have found, however, is a 17th century baillie. In Scotland, a Baillie was a 'civic officer', akin to a magistrate. My 7 x great grandfather, Patrick McCarra (Mccara, McAra), was a Baillie in the Canongate. The Canongate, now one of the most touristy parts of Edinburgh, grew up as a little burgh, dating back to the 12th century, which was separate from the city of Edinburgh. In the mid 16th century it was ruled by "four baillies, three deacons, two treasurers and four councillors."  This ruling body of which Patrick was a leading member met every week in the meeting rooms of the Tollbooth. It was here that the po

 It is the year 1916. Wladyslaw Stepek, my husband's grandfather, is a prisoner of war in a Russian camp. He contracts tuberculosis and the prison guards decide he needs to be operated on. During the operation, half of one lung is removed and, while he is recovering, he plays card games with his captors.  At one such game he wins money from them, but they can't afford to pay him. He tells them "Gentlemen,I don't want your money, I want my freedom." Surprisingly they agree to see what they can do about that and they come up with a plan. One of the other prisoners is due to be hanged for attempting to escape. The prison guards tell the prisoner who is due to be hanged that they will spare his life and send him to Siberia instead for 15 years - under one condition. He must change his name to Wladyslaw Stepek! This, however, causes a problem for the guards as they need to have a hanged body. So they decide that they will 'hang' the body of another prisoner, wh

My husband's paternal grandfather, Wladyslaw Stepek, was born in 1893 in Poland, at a time when that area of Poland was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When WW1 broke out in 1914, he was conscripted into the Austrian Army. We knew he had been a POW, taken prisoner sometime in 1915 and later released. In 2017, Martin wondered if there would be any records held somewhere in Austria which could give us any more information, given that Wladyslaw had served in the Austrian Army. So, he dictated a letter to me in English, which I translated into German, and we sent it off to the Austrian State Archives. We thought there was only a slim chance of anything coming from this, but we waited on a reply. A couple of weeks later, in came the reply. They would search their archives for a fee of 45 Euros for the 30 minutes work they believed it would entail. All we had to do was agree to this and wait. They estimated we would hear if they had found anything or not within the next eight weeks.