Roots, shoots and stories

According to church parish records, my 4 x great grandparents on my direct paternal line, John McAra and Ann Angus were married on the second of July 1768 in Cramond. However, the Kirk Session minutes provide a little more detail than the actual date of the marriage. Extract from Kirk Session minutes: "After prayer, Sederunt the Reverend Doctor Gilbert Hamilton, Moderator, Messrs. Cleghorn, John Hay and John Black, Elders, John McAra and Ann Angus, both of this Parish, after Citation compeared* and acknowledged their irregular marriage and produced their lines dated the 2 of July 1786 at Edinburgh" * compeared is legal term in Scots Law meaning to appear in court personally or by attorney. In this case the couple appeared in person. So John and Ann had been involved in an 'irregular marriage'. At this time there were three types of irregular marriages in Scotland, all legal, but not marriages in the eyes of the church. The first type was the couple making a declarati

Many people come from families with a long tradition of serving in the Armed Forces, others find their family only serving in times of war. Neither of my parents, nor any of my grandparents served in the forces. During WW1, both my grandfathers were 'too old' and both in "reserved occupations". These were jobs which exempted you from serving in the military as they were seen as being vital for the defence and smooth running of the country. John McAra as a miner and John Anderson as a metal and steelworker fell under this banner.  During WW2 my own dad was also in a reserved occupation , being a civil engineer. This job took him away from his native Lanarkshire and as such he spent some time during the war living down in Hayes, Middlesex and in Wrexham in Wales. While there however, he did serve in the Home Guard - I vaguely remember him mentioning some of his duties included ensuring people got safely into air raid shelters, but I am sure there was more to it than tha

Almost everyone will know a blended family - a 'step' family formed with two partners and the children from one or both of them. Nowadays this is likely to have arisen when one or both adults have been divorced from their previous partner(s). However, although divorce today is commonplace, it wasn't always the case. Until the 20th century the only grounds for divorce in Scotland were desertion or adultery and it was not until 1976 that in law provision was made for 'divorce by mutual consent'. However, blended families have always existed - families brought together, not by divorce or separation, but usually by death. My great grandmother, Mary Boag, died three weeks after giving birth in 1869 at the age of 40. The child, a boy they named Hugh, died the day before his mother. My great grandfather, John McAra, had lost both his wife and newborn baby within 24 hours, yet he still had four children under ten years of age to care for. He likely registered both deaths at

 Scotland's education system was established way back in the Middle Ages when sons of barons and rich freeholders could send their children to Church choir schools or grammar schools. After the Reformation, these Choir schools lost out to the formation of Parish schools and by the 17th century legislation was passed creating schools in every parish, with local landowners being responsible for providing a school house and paying for a schoolmaster. Education was still basic, short and not compulsory. Sunday schools were established in the 19th century, but attending school was only made compulsory in 1846 and only compulsory between the ages of 5 and 13. Subsequently the leaving age was raised to 14 in 1901, then left untouched until it was raised to 16 in 1973. So can we find records of school attendance of our ancestors anywhere? Although the first census in Scotland took place in 1841, school attendance was not recorded until the next census in 1851.  In the 1851 census, I found

So, despite the heading, I'm not going to write about a favourite recipe that an ancestor has passed down to me, simply because there isn't one. What or rather whom I'm going to write about is my mum, Helen Anderson, who absolutely loved baking. And it is this love of baking that has been passed on to me. My mum. My mum was always baking. Like most children, I got allowed to 'lick the spoon' and taste the raw cake mixture. I got to learn to how to make crispie cakes. I watched how to make pancakes and enjoyed getting the first ones off the pan. I took in helpful baking hints like 'half fat to flour' for pastry or ' 4 4 4 plus 2' for the measurements of flour, sugar,  butter and eggs needed for a sponge cake or little butterfly cakes.  She had learned how to bake from her mother, as many women in her generation had done. There was always something 'in the tin' should a friend or neighbour pop in for a cup of tea. But she didn't just bake f