Roots, shoots and stories

 The two great-great grandmothers that I know the least about are my two Irish great-grandmothers, one paternal and one maternal, Sarah Diamond and Jane Chambers. That is not surprising since Irish records can be difficult to research and to find. So what do I know of them and what information am I missing? Sarah first appears when she marries my 2 x great grandfather, William Boag in Glasgow in 1819. Both were working in the textile industry. Source: Scotlands People Their marriage in the Gorbals was conducted by an independent minister, the significance of which was lost on me at the time but became clearer once I started looking for the baptismal records of her children, whom I had found in the 1841 census for Eaglesham, where William was a cotton spinner. Although I could find her sons' baptisms in the Church of Scotland records, it was only when I checked the Catholic records that I found her daughters! That suggested that Sarah was an Irish Catholic and why her marriage to W...

So far in all my years of research I have not come across any ancestors who deliberately changed their names to take on a new identity for one reason or another, though I have come across various spelling changes down through families or poor transcription of official records. However, my husband Martin's 2 x great grandmother is someone whose maiden name appeared in different guises in both her own documentation and that of her children and it was only through collaboration with a DNA match to one of my husbands siblings that we discovered her 'real' maiden name and information that enabled us to get back another two generations. Initially we had her name from her daughter Elizabeth Raycroft's birth certificate - Mary McAllan. Her  own marriage certificate gave her name as Mary McCallum .  Her death certificate gave her father as Thomas Mulholland. Although these names seem very different, the way they would be have been said is important, as different accents can m...

In these times, when immigration is very much in the news and immigrants and descendants of immigrants often badly thought of by many of the general public, it is worth remembering that many British people today are themselves the descendants of immigrants. This is especially true in Scotland for those people who claim Irish ancestry. Although there has been immigration from Ireland to Scotland for thousands of years, it reached its peak in the 1800s and was at its highest following the Great Famine (1845-1852). In the years leading up to this disaster, there had been many other years of crop failure too and there is no doubt that this was a factor in the flood of Irish immigrants who came over to Scotland. Famished boy and girl turning up the ground to seek for a potato to appease their hunger in Ireland . James  The Illustrated London News, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons I have an Irish great great grandmother on my maternal side and an Irish 3 x great grandmother on my pat...

As I've mentioned previously, my parents never shared family stories with me and I never asked. The only 'family lore' story I can think of was provided to me by my dad's brother, my uncle, George McAra. His bowling blazer carried the coat of arms of the MacGregor clan. He maintained that the McAras were part of this great clan and 'our' motto was "Royal is my line". He also told me our ancestors were kings in Ireland. As a teenager in the 1970s,  my mum even made me a poncho in the Macgregor tartan! (I'm relieved I don't have a photo of that!) My dad with my Uncle George. The Macgregor crest is on the blazer pocket, though not very clear. Source: own photo So.. is any of that true? Have I the right to claim I'm part of Clan Macgregor? And were they or their ancestors kings in Ireland? According to internet name sources, the McAra name itself was first found in Perthshire, likely dating back to the 11th century. Since then, it has been foun...

 This week's post is late because I was waiting on my husband Martin getting back from a ...REUNION!  This is the second time he has travelled abroad to meet up with 'cousins' from his paternal side, many of whom he had never met before. A few years ago, it was Martin himself who decided it would be a good idea to make contact with the various descendants of his Polish side of the family. Martin already had a photograph from 1905 of his grandmother as a young child alongside her parents and all eight of her siblings. Thanks to the internet, he was quickly able to connect with relatives from across the world, all of whom were descendants of his grandmother and those siblings. The first reunion was held in Poland in 2019, in Krosno and Haczow. Haczow was the birthplace of his grandfather and where his grandfather met his grandmother and Krosno was where his great grandparents lived for some years. Descendants of five of the siblings in the photograph attended - around 20 peop...

I first started my genealogical journey in the 1980s. No sitting in the comfort of my home doing my research. Once I'd exhausted the very little family documentation available to me, along with any vague names people could remember, I'd to take the train through to Edinburgh and pay a daily fee to do research in New Register House in Edinburgh. There I'd sit, filling in forms for a 'librarian' to take away and bring me microfilms of records which you then had to scroll through, bleary eyed, to try and find the person you were looking for. And a lot of the time I didn't find them. They were either not where they were meant to be or their name wasn't as expected. Many is the time I'd spend a whole day in Edinburgh, with a break for lunch at the McDonalds on the corner, and come home with very little new information, perhaps even nothing.  In genealogy a 'brickwall' is a tough research problem, a deadend which after hours of research still yields no...

 Irish! That begins with a vowel and my Irish heritage has left me with an unsolved mystery. It was when I was doing research decades ago that I first came across the name Sarah Diammond. What a lovely name, I thought. Little did I realise that she would be a real mystery woman and that is because she came from Ireland. I first saw her name on the death certificate of my 2x great grandmother Mary Boag, wife of John McAra. Mary died in 1869 and her mother is listed as Sarah Diamond (deceased), father William Boag, cotton spinner. Sarah and William got married in the Gorbals, Glasgow in 1819 by an independent minister. Why an independent minister? It took me many years before I solved that one.  Meanwhile Sarah and William are found living in Eaglesham in the 1841 census with three sons and two daughters. Sarah's birthplace is indicated as Ireland.  I found the sons' baptismal records easily enough, but I couldn't find the daughters. It took a while - until I thought to che...