What Did Your Ancestor Sound Like ?

If your ancestors came from another area of the country or if you're outside the UK, you may not be familiar with different British accents.

When I visited America, I was surprised to find that most people I met were disappointed or surprised that I did not speak with a London Cockney accent.

I was astonished that those people thought the London Cockney accent was pleasant - I don't.

On the other hand, I can't determine whether people are American or Canadian by their accent.

The BBC have a quick introduction to the range of accents in Britain but it doesn't have many Scots accents. There are some Scottish Borders people speaking on the Scottish Borders Memory Bank website but it's usually not clear which accent they have and it's difficult to find a particular accent. One set of interviews is with Mary McQueen from Thornielee, near Clovenfords between Galashiels and Innerleithen. The British Library have Walter Elliot from Selkirk but I haven't found any others.

Carving History - the Life and Works of Andrew Currie of Darnick - 11 March 2014

Melrose Historical & Archaeological Association's talk in the Upper Hall of the Ormiston Institute, Melrose on Tuesday, 11th March is called 'Carving History' and it's about the life and works of Andrew Currie of Darnick.

The speaker is Bob Johnstone, who has researched his family tree to find the link to Andrew, his great-great-grandfather. Bob will be signing copies of his book.

Admission is £3 to non-members.

Andrew Currie (1812 to 1891) is famous for his stone monuments like Mungo Park in Selkirk, the Ettrick Shepherd at St Mary’s Loch and King Robert the Bruce, erected on the esplanade at Stirling Castle in 1877; as well as other pieces in plaster, wood and marble. He was also an enthusiastic antiquary, an oral historian, and a writer who wrote colourful stories of life in the Borders of the early nineteenth century. Born to a Selkirkshire sheep farmer who fell on hard times, Andrew Currie was obliged against his will to take up a trade. He worked as a millwright until his mid forties, when his health broke. Only then did he become a sculptor, which had long been his dream.

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: