The Scottish Family History Surprise.
Thursday, August 7th, 2008I had gone a little way into my paternal line, with loads more to do, when I just thought I would take a quick look at my mother’s ancestry. My mum died a few hours after I was born in the late 1950’s and my maternal grandmother did much to bring me up.
Grandma would mention her father with obvious pride throughout my childhood but I took in very little about him other than he was Scottish. Now that I was researching family history I was interested in finding out more about this great-grandfather of mine, but sadly my grandmother had passed on by this time. An elder cousin was able to furnish me with an extract of a birth registration for Edward A M Hay that had been obtained several years before, from Edinburgh, by my grandmother. The first surprise for me was that this Scotsman, my great-grandfather was born in Tours, France! He was registered, however, as a British Subject as the son of Charles Crossland Hay and Jeanette Whitelaw Wemyss (HAY).
I now used the excellent website www.ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk and quickly found that the Scottish records were fantastic and so much more accessible than those south of the border where I was slowly trying to find my father’s ancestors. On ScotlandsPeople I could search the Statutory records, Births from 1855 to 2006, marriages 1855-1932 and deaths 1855-2006 and also the Old Parish Records for the births and baptisms 1553-1854 and banns & marriages 1553-1854. What is more, unlike the English parish records, I could buy images of the documents on line to be posted to me at home. I found the bans of marriage for my great-great grandparents and ordered them up so that, a few days later, the envelope from Edinburgh was there on my door mat. I could now see the place of marriage was at Jeanette’s fathers house in Aberdour, Fife in July 1832 and that Charles was living in Auchindenny House in the parish of Lasswade, Midlothian (Edinburgh).
From them I was able to find their parents. All of a sudden I was off at speed tracing the lines backwards in time. Back to the 1630’s in the case of the Hays!
What was a surprise was that I had found my mother’s Scottish line was of gentry stock, with the odd Aristocrat and an Episcopalian Bishop who was Primus of Scotland for good measure, the further back I went. This started to make it easy once I found Key ancestors as the aristocratic families are well documented on the internet and an especially useful site for me was that of www.Stirnet.com
If you are tracing Scottish Family History I wholeheartedly recommend these resources to you.
Once I had the names of places in Scotland that my forbearers came from I made some time in the Summer to take three days out and visit them. I got to see Castles and houses and the sites of ruins and to discover that I am probably a descendent of a Norman called William da Haya, Cupbearer to King Malcolm IV 1154-1164 & King William ‘The Lion’ of Scots 1165-1214.
http://www.nicholasthorne.com/Three%20days%20in%20Scotland-Introduction.html
Its what many of us dream about, being able to say we are the descendent of someone rich and powerful.