Time-Travel in Peebles, Tomorrow (3 September)

This Saturday, Tweeddale University of the Third Age are organising a history event ‘Travel in Time in Tweeddale’ which will be held at the Leckie Memorial Bakehouse (behind the Leckie Memorial Church - see map at foot of page), Eastgate, Peebles from 10.30 am to 4 pm.

Their day starts off with a walk round Peebles with Gerard Bakker, looking at some of the interesting houses built as a result of the coming of the railway. At the event there will be displays on travel themes, three talks about the railway, drovers and the impact of transport changes in Victorian Peebles, two film shows, and a walk along the drove road out of Peebles. They’ll have a colouring corner for children, too.

The event is free and I’m looking forward eagerly to the day.

Borders Family History Society will be there with a range of mainly Peeblesshire publications including Innerleithen Shops, Innerleithen Monumental (Gravestone) Inscriptions, Snippets & Photos About Old Innerleithen. Come and meet Davina, John and Peter and ask us for help with your family history.

Programme:
9.30am-11am    Walk:     A stroll round Peebles with Gerard Bakker, looking at some of the interesting houses built as a result of the coming of the railway  

10.30am    Exhibition opens with displays and objects on the theme of:

• Horse and carriage
• Highways and byways
• Impact of the Railway
• Borders Family History Society
• Children’s colouring corner and “memory lane”    

11am – noon  Talk    Ron Glendinning shares his memories – and great photographs of being bought up on Peebles railway, in conversation with Ronald Ireland.

Noon – 1pm   Walk    Discover with Stuart Akers where visitors to Peebles by rail and road recovered from their journeys.

Noon – 1pm   Films    A series of short films about transport in Tweeddale, by Brian Whitnell, featuring local people, and exploring working horses and the people who look after them - then and now.

1.15pm – 2pm   Talk    Mud, mayhem and merriment: Three Victorian Peebles’ residents talk about the changes brought about by  the momentous developments in transport  in 1864– not all of them desirable!
   
2.15pm – 3.15pm   Talk    Who were Scotland’s own “cowboys”?  Drovers passed through Peebles on the long journey south across the hills. Was it the ‘wild west’ out there? Where can you find their paths? Ronnie Watt tells their amazing story.

3.15pm – 5pm   Walk    Take to the hills with Francis Mordaunt and Ronnie Watt - in the footsteps of the Drovers.

3.15pm – 4pm    Films   A series of short films about transport in Tweeddale, by Brian Whitnell, featuring local people, and exploring working horses and the people who look after them - then and now.        

4pm    Exhibition closes

Outside the hall

• See horseshoes made and Ross Philips, a farrier, at work
• Get up close to a Vintage Tractor
• Go back in time with the Tweeddale Travel Timeline

Free DNA Tests for Men Named Riddell

A lady in New Zealand named Gail Riddell and an apparently unrelated Jim Riddell in America are joint administrators for the Riddell/Riddle/Ridley/Ruddell DNA project with an American based firm called FamilyTree DNA. .

Gail's family were mostly from the Roxburghshire area but were also in Berwickshire and Lanarkshire (not to mention all through the Lothian area), depending on the lands they purchased/versus where their money was "made". Jim's forebears were from Lanarkshire in the late 16th Century and are thought to have left at the time of the Covenanters.

Gail wrote "I have many men from New Zealand, Australia, USA, one from South Africa and a few from UK who have been excited by what they have learned as a result of testing their Y-Chromosome.  They have worked hard in order to raise sufficient funds for me to be able to offer totally free, a number of  Y-37 tests for any man living in Northumberland, the Scottish Borders, Yorkshire or lowland Scotland who has this surname and who has a family tree of his paternal ancestry back to around 1800 or earlier.

The bottom line is to extend and "prove" our genealogy in a way that paper trails have been unable.  By that, I mean if we go back into history, especially the 1600s (as an example) and look at the deaths, followed by pestilence, followed by famines and we soon begin to realise that not everyone who bears a particular surname is actually of that stock.  I say this because many young women with wee ones to feed were made widows and frequently joined up with a "protector" who thus gave his name to those
wee ones.

For those who are anxious about DNA testing - the medical genes are not considered in the test that I am offering as a "freebie".  The test itself needs just two separate cheek swabs.  "

If you're a Riddle (whatever the spelling), and you've got a family tree on the paternal side back to 1800, and you would be willing to take the test, please contact Gail at the email address below.

If you would like to know more about DNA, see www.familytreedna.com. 

If you want help building your family tree come to our archive at 52 Overhaugh St, Galashiels, TD1 1DP. We're open every Monday from 6pm to 8pm, and every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 10am to 4pm.

Have you a Wicked Criminal in Your Family ?

Our next talk is on Sunday, 26th April when Margaret Fox will talk about "Crimes of an Heinous Nature - Looking at some High Court Trials" and it's being held at the Corn Exchange & Ormiston Institute in Market Square, Melrose. Map.

Margaret will be looking into the darker side of life across the Scottish Borders during the 18th and 19th centuries, examining not only crimes which have long passed into oblivion but also those which are still making the headlines today. Drawing on her extensive research in the High Court of Justiciary case papers in the National Records of Scotland, her talk will range from the political to the domestic, and from the violent to the less so, showing how these records serve to illustrate changes in society and illuminate the past in a unique way.
She will also dip into Lord Cockburn’s ‘Circuit Journeys’ which gives a truly fascinating insight into 19th century crime and criminals from the perspective of a judge who was not afraid to speak his mind !

Her previous talks about the Kirk and its records, and about Traquair House were well attended so come early to get a decent seat.

I warmly invite you to attend the talk whether you are a member or not. Doors open at 2pm; the talk begins at 2.30pm.
We'll have a range of family history publications available to buy, and there’ll be light refreshments (donation expected) available after the talk.
If you have a problem with your family history, please discuss it with one of our volunteers.

A Quite Remarkable Man - the Life of Patrick Brydone and His Family (1736-1818)

This is a review of A Quite Remarkable Man - the Life of Patrick Brydone and His Family (1736-1818)’ by John Evans. Hardback. 384 pp. Published by Amberley Publishing, Gloucestershire, England at £20 (now £18). ISBN 978 1 4456 3890 4.

Patrick Brydone was born at Coldingham on 5 January 1736 to Rev Robert Brydone and Elizabeth Dysart, married Mary Robertson on 4 April 1785 and died 19 June 1818. 

Sir Walter Scott described him as our pilgrim and as "My venerable friend". 

He experimented with electric shock therapy on willing patients; as an army officer, he saw action in France, Portugal and Spain during the Seven Years' War; a tutor in Europe to William Beckford, owner of a large Jamaican sugar estate; author of A Tour through Sicily and Malta - 6,750 copies sold in under 4 years; visited France, Switzerland, Bavaria, Prussia and several other German territories, Austria, Italy, Malta, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Russia and became comptroller-general of the London Stamp Office. 

He was obviously a scientist, explorer and a diplomat, so he clearly was a remarkable man. 

There's lots of interesting detail about Italy and Russia but rather less about other countries. Everywhere he seems to have met important people, however there are also anecdotes about peasants and more mundane events. I was interested to learn that miners at a copper and silver mine in Spania Dolina (now in Slovakia) in April 1776 received 12 kreuzers  (about 2½p) for an 8 hour day.

His daughter, Mary, married the Hon. Gilbert Elliot, eldest son of the first Baron Minto, the other 2 daughters married an admiral and a minister. There's some bits about life in the Scottish Borders and other parts of Scotland.  The notes to the book have more detail, there's a bibliography, and an index, mainly of people.

It took me a long time to read this book because, at 384 pages, it is a very long book and rather an academic book. Unlike most academic tomes, it is thoroughly interesting, lots of anecdotes about the celebrities of the day, pastiches about life in all the countries he visited, and helped me to understand events in Britain and Europe during the 17th century. There are lots of illustrations, too.

Today, we're quite used to people going off on holiday all over the world but that wasn't common except for the wealthy in the 18th century. Patrick Brydone not only visited more than 15 countries by travelling thousands of miles in horse-drawn carriages but found time to shape government policy and write about some of his travels.

As I hope the above shows, this book is well worth reading and if I had to find a criticism, it is that I would have liked a sort of "dramatis personae" so that I be reminded at a glance who somebody was when I encountered the name later on in the book. Not only was this book very interesting but it's inspired me to read Brydone's book 'A Tour through Sicily and Malta' which I've discovered is free on the web.

Search for English and Welsh Wills After 1995

The Probate Service for England and Wales have launched a new index to wills of people who died in England or Wales after 1995.

The website currently says "Search for the will or probate of any person in the UK who died in or after 1996" but I've been in contact with Stuart Marshall to point out that it should say England and Wales (instead of UK) and he says he will get this amended.



I imagine the person creating the website saw the referendum poll results and assumed that there would be such a victory by the 'Yes' campaign that Scotland would be independent after 18 September.

Search the England and Wales Will index.

Once you've found the person you want you can download the grant and or will for £10 per person.

Digging Up Your Roots - Special Programme to Look at Scottish Diaspora

The producer of BBC Radio Scotland's family history programme 'Digging Up Your Roots', Rhona Brudenell, has announced a one-off hour long programme looking at the Scottish diaspora which will be aired during the Commonwealth Games.
She wants to feature stories of people who have researched their family history and uncovered interesting tales of Scots who left their homeland to seek new lives elsewhere (in particular, to countries which are now part of the British Commonwealth) or people who live overseas whose family history research brought them back here to Scotland?   Either way, she would love to hear from you!

Her direct contact details are:
Phone 01224 384881
or email her at rhona.brudenell AT  bbc.co.uk, replacing the spaces and AT with the @ sign.

Get Old Images of Scotland for Nothing

Do you want to see what Scotland used to look like ?
Do you need a picture for your website or publication ?

2 weeks before last Christmas, the British Library announced that they had put on Flickr over a million scanned images from books originally published in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries for anyone to use, remix and repurpose.

At the time I couldn't see a particular use for them especially as they weren't sorted or arranged into subject collections, so it would be very difficult to find a particular picture.

If you know the title of a book, you can search for that but that doesn't help to find a specific picture.

Old Scottish Genealogy & Family History have created an interactive map that links images to a map of Scotland.

It's simple to use.

You pan the map to see the area in which you're interested and if there are images available, you'll see either a blue pin with a number or a red pin.
If it's a blue pin that means there's more than one image so you need to zoom in to see the individual red map pins.
Click on a red map pin to see one or more images, then click on the image to expand it.

Although there are more than 200 pins for Scotland, there are only 19 pins for the Scottish Borders but it's a start and a week ago there were only 15.

The red map pin near Melrose shows lots of views of Melrose Abbey; here's one:

Halloween Again

Halloween (correctly Hallowe'en) is important in Scotland and probably occurs in everyone's family history but it doesn't begin to be celebrated as much as in USA where (in my view), they really go over the top with decorated houses and parties where people have spent fortunes on costumes.

And .....

there are also Halloween cards.

Enjoy this set of Halloween postcards on Flickr from New York Public Library.

Migration away from and back to Scotland

Maybe it’s because I have so many family members who lived abroad for long periods or who emigrated that I find migration so interesting; as I demonstrated at my talk, Useful Free Websites for Family History Research on 24th March, I seem to have uncovered ancestors and cousins who lived in Spain and France.

It’s more difficult to find out about people that live abroad partly because we don’t know where to look and partly because most of us don’t know the local and social history of foreign countries.

That’s why I think it’s appropriate that Migration is the theme of our Family History and Local and Social History conference and fair at the Scottish Borders Campus, Galashiels, Scotland on 11th May. As well as the opportunity to hear inspirational speakers on different aspects of migration, there’ll be internet access and the opportunity to get help with your family and local history problems with advice provided by the Hawick Heritage Hub, Scotland’s People, Graham Maxwell Ancestry, Family Search, and ourselves.

Also there are 20 family history societies coming from around the UK and I’m sure they will be happy to help you with a problem relating to the area they cover. There are more details on the Conference and you can also book online until 6th May.

Migrants in American Newspapers

With our Migration-themed conference and family history and local history fair in Galashiels, Scotland on 11th May, just over a month away, we're finding more ways to find information on migrants.

Marjorie Gavin found free online access to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from 1841 to 1955 useful.

The parent website, Fulton History, has almost 22 million pages from newspapers published in New York state, USA between 1795 and 2007, and I've found over 50 articles about my (until now, mysterious) great-uncle Arthur who emigrated to New York in the 1890s.

Online booking for our conference has closed.

An Independent Scotland and the European Union

I went to a very interesting seminar this evening at the Royal Society of Edinburgh - the first of a series titled 'Enlightening the Constitutional Debate'.

Next year, in the autumn, Scotland will get a referendum to decide whether to become an independent nation again, and this seminar was part of 10 leading up to the referendum.

Few Scots were permitted to determine the union of the parliaments, over 300 years ago in 1707 and I've wondered which way my ancestors would have voted if they had had the choice. Like most people I haven't got that far back in my family history so the question is moot. My maternal grandparents, who died more than 20 years ago were fiercely divided about the independence question.

This evening was about Scotland and the European Union (EU). The Royal Society's president, Sir John Peebles Arbuthnott opened the proceedings and the seminar was presented by Prof Diana Panke, Professor of Political Science, University of Freiburg; Prof Neil Walker, Regius Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations, University of Edinburgh; Graham Avery, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford & European Policy Centre, Brussels and chaired by Peter Jones, a freelance journalist for The Scotsman, The Economist and The Times. There were about 160 people present and Sir John Arbuthnott said that they could have filled the rooms twice over.

We heard from the presenters about the legal position regarding Scottish membership of the EU and the terms and political issues; the process by which and independent Scotland would become an EU member state and the influence of small states in the EU.

The proceedings and the questions videoed and will be made available on the Royal Society of Edinburgh's website, and this will happen for future events too.

I met people from The Czech Republic and Poland, and I heard French and Spanish being spoken so clearly this decision is important not just for the Scots but also for our immigrants, too.

If you're interested in family or local history or migration, take part in our Conference on 11th May 2013 in Galashiels, Scotland.

Upcoming East Lothian and Borders Archaeology, Family History and Heritage Events

There are two sets of events next month in our part of Scotland that may be interest: East Lothian Archaeology and Family History Fortnight, which runs from 1st to 16th September and Borders Heritage Week, which runs from 12th to 23rd September. Download the East Lothian Archaeology and Family History Fortnight programme and the Borders Heritage Week programme.  

William Wallace, the 'Guardian of Scotland' - new exhibition and talks

There's going to be a new exhibition about William Wallace, the'Guardian of Scotland', in the Parliament in Edinburgh from 10th August to 8th September (closed 12th and 13th August and Sundays). Opening times are 10am to 5pm (except 9am to 6.30pm on 4th to 6th September.) Admission will be free. 

The centrepiece of the exhibition will be the letter of 1300 from the King Philip IV of France to his agents at the Papal Court in Rome asking them to assist Wallace in his business before the Pope and the 'Lübeck letter' issued in 1297 in the names of William Wallace and Andrew Moray or Murray, inviting the ports of Lübeck and Hamburg to resume trade with Scotland. 

This is a chance to go beyond the fictionalised version of William Wallace and Scottish history portrayed by the 'Braveheart' film and discover the story behind the real William Wallace. Oddly for such an important man, Wallace's family history isn't clear. I find it difficult to believe that he would have achieved as much as he did without being a good soldier or having personal followers and that's not likely unless he was born into a landowning (and probably noble) family.

Associated with the exhibition is a free talk 'The Attempted Restoration: Wallace's Support of King John, 1299-1302' by Dr Amanda Beam-Frazier of the University of Glasgow. She will talk about the efforts to restore John Balliol as king of Scots after his abdication in 1296 and reflect on Balliol's motivation to return, as well as the political and diplomatic context from 1299 to 1302. The talk is on 24th August at the Parliament from 10am to 11am. Online bookings for 'The Attempted Restoration: Wallace's Support of King John, 1299-1302 or on 0131 348 5405.

There's another event from 11.30 to 12.30 on the same day, 'Sir William Wallace, Scotland and the wider world' - a debate by a panel that includes Dr Fiona Watson, Professor Michael Prestwich and other historians. Members of the audience will get the chance to quiz the panel about Wallace and the momentous decades for Scotland from 1286 to 1306. The debate will be chaired by the Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick, MSP. Online bookings for Sir William Wallace, Scotland and the wider world or on 0131 348 5405.

The exhibition and these two talks are part of the Festival of Politics at the Parliament taking place from 17th to 25th August, and there are other talks, exhibitions, concerts. You can download the whole Festival of Politics programme.

Adam Clark, Bridge Constructor, Budapest

Our next talk is on Sunday, 29th April, in the Drill Hall, Peebles Community Centre, EH45 8AU, when Jim Lyon will be talking to us about Adam Clark who supervised the construction of the Széchenyi Chain Bridge over the Danube between Buda and Pest, Hungary.

Jim Lyon, a well-travelled civil engineer born in the Scottish Borders, will give us an insight into the amazing life of Adam Clark. The presentation will cover Adam’s early years in the Scottish Borders, his apprenticeship as a millwright and the building of the first bridge over the Danube since Roman Times linking Buda and Pest. Whilst Adam Clark is immortalised in Hungary and the iconic bridge, opened in 1849, is still in use today, Adam Clark is barely known in Scotland.

I warmly invite you to attend the talk whether you are a member or not.
The doors will be open at 2pm; the talk begins at 2.30pm.
It’s free, so we hope to see lots of you there.
We'll have a range of family history publications available to buy.

As usual there’ll be tea, coffee, and biscuits available after the talk.
We’ll also be making the monthly 50-50 draw at the meeting.
If you have a problem with your family history, please discuss it (no charge) with one of our volunteers.

If you're not familiar with Peebles, here's a map.


Our latest volume, Coldingham Monumental Inscriptions is available.

Read our Kith & Kin column every week in the Border Telegraph and Peeblesshire News newspapers.

Breaking Stones for Road-Mending and the Stone Project

I went to a very interesting talk in Maxton, Scotland on Monday evening by Jake Harvey, emeritus Professor and former head of Sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art, about the international Stone Project.

He talked for well over an hour, with interesting slides and videos, about quarrying and stone working techniques, sculptors and stone workers, sculptures, and exhibitions.

For me, one of the most astonishing views was that of a female quarry worker in Peenya Quarry, India, breaking up stone using a 15kg (33 lbs) hammer. She must have tremendous strength and I wonder if her back aches too ? She has no protection from chips on splinters, not for her bare arms, feet and ankles, or her head, particularly not for her eyes. I suspect her sari is pretty thin and chips could easily fly through thin cloth. I also wondered if she had ever hit her feet, a blow from that hammer would surely break foot bones.

When Jake said she was breaking stone for road repairs, I immediately thought of the women described in the poor registers (for example, Widow Davidson of Jedburgh, Scotland, aged 45, who 'breaks down stones into sand, and makes about 3d a day'), and in the poorhouse at Jedburgh engaged in breaking stones.

There's more about Widow Davidson of Jedburgh in our publications, Jedburgh Parish (1852-1874) and Jedburgh Parish (1875-1893).

I wonder how Widow Davidson was attired, whether she had any protection, and whether she did the work at home or in a quarry, and whether she was supervised. I haven't managed to find any detailed descriptions of this type of work.

New Additions to Digital Six-inch Maps of Scotland, 1892-1960, at National Library of Scotland

The National Library of Scotland have made available a full range of the Six-inch 2nd and later edition maps of Scotland, 1892-1960.


That's just what we've been waiting for. It was revised for Scotland from 1892-1907, and then updated regularly until the 1940s. You can zoom into the detail of the OS six-inch maps using an interactive index map, and search by county, parish and a gazetteer of place names.
You can order digital images and prints.

Use the maps link or the county links below, click the sheet on the map that you want, then at the left select the actual map you want.



Berwickshire

Peeblesshire


Roxburghshire


Selkirkshire

From Kelso to Kalamazoo

I’ve just returned from our November open meeting in Melrose.  The speaker was Margaret Jeary who talked about the memoirs of George Taylor who was born in Yetholm in 1803 and died in Michigan in 1891.   George was the son of a shepherd and grew up in a literate household.  He first went to school when he was seven and was taught by a pupil teacher aged 18.  He was an avid reader throughout his life and a self-educated man.  He became a fluent writer using clear evocative English.

George’s journal or memoirs came to light as part of a local history project by Eckford Woman’s Rural Institute.  With the help of an IT literate daughter they were first in published on the web.  In 2009 “From Kelso to Kalamazoo” appeared in book form as part of the Flashbacks series published by the National Museum of Scotland.  (From Kelso to Kalamazoo: The Life and Times of George Taylor, 1803–1891Margaret Jeary and Mark Mulhern Eds: NMS Enterprises, Edinburgh 2009. ISBN: 9781905267279).

The book is full of delightful little vignettes of 19^th century life in rural Scotland.  The author tells of getting drunk for the first time as a teenager after helping with sheep washing.  He so disliked the result that he eventually signed the pledge.  To save the coach fare he would walk to Edinburgh – 50 miles in around  36 hours.  On one trip to Edinburgh he saw an advert for a train trip to Burns Country and in Alloway he met an old lady who said that she was Tam O’Shanter’s wife.  Another train trip to the Great Exhibition in 1851 was on a Sunday.  George, a devout church man, squared his conscience by handing out religious tracts on the train.

George Taylor became a market gardener eventually becoming foreman of a Kelso market garden.  He thought about his work carefully and found that protecting potato plants with straw reduced the instance of blight at a time that it was ravaging the potato crop in both Ireland and Scotland,  He also observed that there was a connection between water and the spread of cholera.

In 1855 George Taylor emigrated to the United States and started a truck farm in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  The soil there was ideally suited to celery which he introduced into the USA.  Clearly this was a successful enterprise as George was able to return to Scotland twice.   On the first occasion he returned with his third wife.  In all he had 4 wives and 9 children but all four wives and 5 of the children died before him.

Thank you to Margaret Jeary for a clear and interesting talk.

Our next meeting is on 26th February 2012 in Melrose when Peter Munro will talk about Saving, Spending and Family History.