Sampler

In 1879 a young girl embroidered a sampler bearing the inscription “ Boast not thyself of Tomorrow, Isabella Kennedy aged 12 1879 Ettrick Bridge”.  See our February 2104 Newsletter.

At some point the sampler came into the possession of Sue Sendall residing in Canada. Her family history research failed to produce any connection at all with the family of Isabella Kennedy.

Sue contacted us and asked if we might be able to trace a descendant of the young embroiderer and Society member, Alan Turnbull, did some quite extensive research on the family which he passed on but could find no living relatives.

He suggested in the circumstances the sampler might be donated to the local school at Kirkhope which Sue was  more than pleased to do.

The sampler was duly sent from Canada and having been framed by Alan was presented to the school today, the last day of the summer term. This raised considerable interest from the children but perhaps in some ways more so from their parents and teachers.

All thanks to Susan for a most thoughtful donation and to Alan for all his research  and facilitating.

June 2012 Issue of Borders Family History Society Magazine

The latest issue (June 2012) of our 44 page Borders Family History Society magazine was posted to members on 7th and 8th July.

This issue contains articles about

• Our Patron, the Earl of Lauderdale
• Postcards as heirlooms and their importance in family history
• Alexander Linton, born 1829 in Kirkhope, and his life as a policeman
• Who inherited property left by people who didn't make a will
• A summary of the talk by Jim Lyon on 29th April about Adam Clark, born 1811, who supervised the construction of the Széchenyi Chain Bridge over the Danube between Buda and Pest, Hungary
• Jessie Miller, daughter of Susan Miller who died in 1853 at Lightfield on the Mellerstain estate
• A book published in 1848 by Alexander Somerville, born 1811
• The first part of the talk 'Saving, Spending and Family History' that I gave on 26th February 2012. There are nice colour illustrations of some of the coins in my talk.

The cover shows the Queen meeting our Patron, the Earl of Lauderdale on the occasion of her Silver Jubilee.

Join Borders Family History Society to get future magazines, discounts on our publications and Scotland's People vouchers.

Parishes Ancient & Modern

As you may have seen we’ve now got pages on our web-site for the Counties of Berwick, Peebles and Selkirk. Those for Roxburgh should make an appearance soon. Some of these pages include more detail than others so if you can contribute to one of the pages get in touch with us either via this blog or through the contact form on the web-site (you’ll need to scroll down the page to find it). Please let us know about any mistakes or if you find a broken link.

A few weeks ago I was contacted by the local minister who wondered why Innerleithen and Traquair merited a page each whilst Walkerburn didn’t. For most part the parishes listed are the historic parishes not the current ones. Whilst there's nothing quite as formal as a cut-off date in practice it's those parishes that existed in 1855 the point at which Civil Registration was introduced to Scotland and the cut-off date for the Old Parochial Records held by the General Registrar's Office for Scotland (and available on the Scotland's People web site). Not that we’re totally consistent as Kirkhope and Caddonfoot do have their own page despite being 19^th century creations which have now been absorbed by neighbouring parishes. However I did borrow the Church of Scotland Yearbook from the local minister and in time the parish pages will indicate what has happened to the ancient parishes – and where I can find one a link to the church web-site.