Roots, shoots and stories

 My husband's aunt, Mary Murphy, was born in 1917 in Rutherglen, Scotland, the third of twelve children, born to James Murphy, a coalminer and his wife Mary Ann. Her parents had just had a terrible year as their second child, Elizabeth had died at only three months old of a bowel disease. The expectation of a new baby must have filled them with a combination of dread and hope.  We don't know when the couple discovered that Mary also had problems, but her problems were from birth and lifelong and she was termed in those days 'a slow learner' which, nowadays we know would cover a variety of developmental problems, both mental and physical. She went to a special school for children with learning problems but was taken out as she was being bullied. Mary was unable to work and she was looked after by her mother until Mary Ann herself died in 1968. Mary herself had suffered a stroke in the 1960s while on a visit with her mother to visit her sister, Frances in America.  After ...

The majority of my direct ancestors and their family members have lived and worked in Central Scotland for the last couple of hundred years. Therefore many have been involved in metal working, coal mining and weaving. My paternal grandfather was a miner and two of his sons followed him down the mine, one sadly dying in a roof collapse. Two of my great grandfathers were miners as well, the others metal workers. Lanarkshire was literally the 'Black Country' of Scotland, with the whole of what is termed the Central Coalfield located there. In the late 19th century more than half of Scotland's coal was mined there. Angus Watson, a cousin of my father's, was born in Cleland, Lanarkshire in 1884 into a family typical for that area. His father, John, was a coal face worker and all John's sons were to follow him down the pit. In 1891, when Angus was still only 8 years old, three of his brothers were already working in the coal mines - William, aged 16 was working at the coa...