Moncrieff is one of the more unusual surnames in my family tree. Unusual for Orkney that is. The name links to Houton, formerly a small estate in the parish of Orphir, Orkney. Map (name spelled Houston) Moncrieff origins I’d never investigated where the Moncrieffs came from but last year I had a client whose ancestry | more…
Blog posts with the tag 'Orphir'
A new fourth cousin…
A very overdue update on my last post where I talked about a big discovery thanks to Ancestry’s ‘shaky leaves’ hints. Well I checked out the records cited, the research seemed correct and I made contact with the owner of the tree on Ancestry. He is my fourth cousin, a descendant of Jean, sister of | more…
Grandma’s elderflower wine
Jessie Sclater, my grandma, and her sisters, “the aunties o Kebro”, were all very competent women: working on the farm, managing the house, baking, cooking, brewing and, in grandma’s case, making elderflower wine. Nothing evokes the long, light, summer days of my Orkney childhood like the fragrant, sparkling taste of grandma’s elderflower wine. Food and | more…
