Digging Up Your Roots Podcasts

I've already blogged about the new series of BBC Radio Scotland's popular Digging Up Your Roots family history programme.

I’ve now found out that podcasts of the Digging Up Your Roots programmes can be downloaded. The podcasts are available for 30 days after broadcast, so I think the first programme will be available until 7th February 2012, and the subsequent programmes correspondingly later.

The first programme includes one of our members, Marjorie Gavin, talking about Dr John Leyden, the famous poet and orientalist from Denholm. I’m still able to listen to last year’s Digging Up Your Roots podcasts so I’m presuming that once they’re downloaded you’ll be able to listen to them over and over again.

Digging Up Your Roots

Just been catching up with the first programme of the new series of Digging Up Your Roots which was broadcast on Radio Scotland on Sunday 8th Jan. A listener was querying the surname Leyden and possible connections with the city of Leiden in the Netherlands. Marjorie Gavin was featured on the programme, recounting the life and achievements of John Leyden, the famous poet and orientalist from Denholm.

The programme is available on the BBC iplayer until Saturday.

Roxburghshire Monumental Inscriptions - No 19: Cavers & Kirkton (including Denholm)

Contains a hearth tax list, a list of kirk ministers, as well as the monumental inscriptions/gravestone inscriptions from the 820 gravestones in Cavers Old churchyard and new cemetery, Kirkton churchyard and Denholm cemetery. Includes War Memorials.
There is an index to the surnames.
138 pp including index and illustrations. ISBN 1 874232 06 2. 820 gravestones. Price £8.50 plus postage. Weight 205g.

See our Publications Sales List to buy. 

Dr John Leyden, His Life and Family

In September 1775, in a thatched cottage overlooking Denholm Green, a young father proudly looked down on his first child, to be named John after his father and forefathers. At the time, neither of the parents, John Leyden nor his wife Isabel Scott, could have predicted the fascinating life ahead for their son - a life which was to see him master over 30 Oriental languages, become a minister, surgeon and naturalist, bring him fame as a poet and linguist and earn the respect, admiration and friendship of Sir Walter Scott and other eminent members of 19th century society before travelling to India and an untimely death in Java. A genius had been born - Dr John Leyden.

The title is the title of a talk to be given by Marjorie Gavin at Hawick Library, North Bridge Street, Hawick, TD9 9QT, Scotland on Tuesday 16th November at 7.15pm.

200th anniversary of the death of Dr John Leyden

August 2011 sees the 200th anniversary of the death of Dr John Leyden, the famous poet and Orientalist from Denholm in the Scottish Borders.

Dr Leyden was a great friend of Sir Walter Scott and it is said that after his death, Scott could never talk about Leyden without a tear in his eye. He really appears to have been a most remarkable man.

Over the next year, one of our members, Marjorie Gavin, who has served our Society both as Editor and as Chairman, and has transcribed births, marriages and deaths overseas from the Hawick Advertiser and Kelso Mail, hopes to visit as many groups and organisations as possible to talk about the life and achievements of the great Dr Leyden whose story deserves to be more widely known.

If you have any memorabilia or documents relating to Dr John Leyden that might assist her in this task please contact her by sending her a private message in our forum or replying to her forum topic.

More about Dr Leyden is in one of Marjorie's articles, The Life and Family of Dr. John Leyden.

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Learn a New Skill - Recording Gravestone Inscriptions

In May last year, a group of volunteers from the Society met to record the gravestone inscriptions at Minto church, near Denholm.

This was a training event for volunteers new to recording gravestones, and something of an experiment for the Society. There were 11 of us working on Saturday, and 8 on Sunday.  There are 214 gravestones in the churchyard, and we divided ourselves into 5 pairs to record stones. One person entered inscriptions straight into our recording database on a laptop set up next to the church.

It was an unusually hot and very sunny day, which proved slightly difficult for those trying to read faded inscriptions.  Reading inscriptions on the older stones was harder than I expected. We spent a lot of time gently rubbing the weathered lichen converting inscriptions to uncover them, and almost as much time trying to puzzle out the inscriptions. It is greatly tempting to guess what the inscription is, and a huge mistake. One stone took us nearly an hour, as we tried to decipher the text.



Here's an example of one of the inscriptions:
In loving memory of ELIZABETH NORMAN wife of THOS INGLIS who died Teviotbank Cottages 8?.7.18?? aged 68 years. Also the above THOMAS INGLIS who died at Denholm 15.7.18?? Aged 60 years.

Having entered all the inscriptions, they were printed out for us to check, most of which was done on the Sunday. We found a few mistakes, which we corrected.  Apart from several people adding to their skills, we also managed to record most of the inscriptions and check some of them, we had a picnic at lunch-time, and we all found it a fun day out. There is other work to be done, like taking photographs of the stones, compiling historical notes, and transcribing the militia list, hearth tax list, and the list of ministers, however, we hope to publish the results soon.

We are going to repeat these training and recording days at Stobo Church, Peeblesshire, this coming weekend (8th and 9th May), from 10am to 3.30 pm on Saturday, and on Sunday from 1pm to 3.30 pm.

Stobo Church is situated in the village of Stobo on the B712 off the A92 (signposted Broughton) approximately 6 miles south west of Peebles. See this map for directions.

The Church is about two miles from the recently refurbished award winning Dawyck Botanic Garden Visitor Centre with its own Tea Room – unfortunately also the site of the nearest toilet. Even if you have not been involved in transcribing stones before, do consider joining us, as training will be given. Please also bring along a notebook and a pencil and also it can be helpful if you have a soft brush, chalk, water spray and a kneeling mat.

If you would like to take part at Stobo on one or both days, even for a few hours on either day, please contact our organiser, Ronald Morrison either on 01361 882166, or via our Contacts page and send us a message, choosing the contact type Gravestone Recording. This will allow us to coordinate the work, confirm to you more precisely what is involved and advise in the event of any change in the arrangements.

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