Roots, shoots and stories

 This is not the tale of one home or even one plot of family land. It would be nice and simple if my paternal grandparents had stayed put in one house after they married, or moved a couple of times. However, my research over the years and, more recently, information given to me to my eldest living paternal cousin paints a very different story. My grandparents John and Christina married in 1887 at Greenhill in Shotts Parish, Lanarkshire. Christina had been born in Greenhill in 1868. They started off their married life in Greenhill, and about ten years later they moved a short distance away to Whitehill, living at 139 Shotts Road. John was a coalminer, employed at that time in the Greenhill colliery. This old map shows the location of the colliery in relation to the areas of Greenhill and Whitehill. It's likely they resided in accommodation provided by the mining company such as that detailed below: By 1911, they had moved again, as they are found in the 1911 census at Fernieshaw Far

Being the youngest of all my paternal cousins by miles - my oldest cousin was 40 years old when I was born -  I was always on call at weddings to be the little flower girl or the child who handed over the lucky horseshoe to the happy couple. In fact I had that role for the weddings of the two sons of that oldest cousin, in 1961 and 1962 respectively. For one of those 'jobs' ( I can't remember which) I received a gold locket, which I have to this day. I then seemed to wear it anytime I was a flower girl, including my sister's wedding in 1965. So for me this locket symbolises the fact I was the baby of the family trotted out at family weddings! At the moment my daughter is wearing two gold rings. A small heart shaped one, which used to be mine when I was young, but which no longer fits me, and a more intricate custom designed one. This one was made from my mother's plain gold wedding band for my daughter's 21st birthday. Her gran died when she was 8 years old, but

My paternal line has been in Lanarkshire, Scotland, for the last two hundred years. The first of my McAra ancestors to arrive in Lanarkshire was my 2 x great grandfather, John McAra. He didn't come alone - some of his brothers also came to work in the iron foundries and later coal mines.  They had come through to the west from Cramond, a small but important industrial centre in the 18th and 19th centuries on the River Almond just outside Edinburgh. By 1799 Cramond had three iron forges and it was there that my McAra ancestors worked. On my first visit through to Cramond, I naturally visited Cramond Church and its graveyard. There I found a large headstone with details of the McAra family. The first name on the headstone was that of my 3 x great uncle James McAra and the date of his death was given as 1811. Now, by this time I had found out a lot about James McAra and knew he most certainly did not die in 1811 - but 1811 was the year of his transportation to Tasmania for the unlawfu

 I began researching my family tree in the 1980s. My mum and dad were both still alive and gave me the basic information I needed to get me started - their parents' and siblings names and rough dates of birth. It was only at that point did I find out my dad had had five elder siblings who had died and even my mum had had a younger brother who had died as a child. They had never come up in conversation before and were not talked about. In my dad's defence, three of his siblings had died before he was born, though the other two had died in their 20s-30s. My mum's young brother had died when she was 8 years old, but as I said, she had never spoken about him previous to my starting my research. So, armed with what little I knew, I started filling in the gaps - dates of birth/marriage/death and places associated with my close relatives. All the dates associated with the births and tragic deaths of my aunts and uncles. It was when I turned to my mum's siblings that a couple o

On my 2 x great grandfather John Young's death certificate, his father is listed as James Young and his mother as a Helen Ravelton. John died at the age of 78 and was a widower. His son James was a witness on the death certificate and both of John's parents were marked as deceased. Ravelton is not a common name and therefore you would expect researching Helen in the Parish records to be relatively easy, even when you consider its various spellings - Ravelton/Revelton/Raveltoun. However, with names getting passed on down through families, mix-ups can occur and this is what has happened in Helen's case and has led to lots of trees having the wrong Helen, the wrong dates or the wrong parents. Many even have the wrong James Young as her husband! I myself have also made mistakes in researching her and her husband James Young - James Young is a very common name in this area and indeed throughout Scotland. In my case too, the Youngs and the Raveltons are also closely connected. It