Mothers’ Day is the theme for the #52ancestors challenge this week. As that is a tie-in to the American festival, I’m going to swap and take the British Mothering Sunday as my prompt. Ann Thomson (1816-1904) Ann is my x2 great grandmother in my father’s direct line, the wife of Hugh Rosie or Ross (1816-1892). | more…
Cemetery, churchyard, graveyard, kirkyard, words that bring a gleam to the eye of family history addicts. Handled carefully, they can be treasure chests but there are a few caveats: not everyone had a gravestone, some stones have gone or are no longer readable and, most importantly, the information on them is not always correct. Cemetery | more…
Storms are a fairly common occurrence in Orkney where the majority of my known ancestors lived their lives. I have a newspaper cutting from the mid 1960s with the headline “Five weeks of gales without let up”. Storm is not used so much: “gey windy”, “blowan a gale” or “right coorse” would be more common | more…
