Wednesday 18 February 2009

Kissing Cousins

As many of you know my Great Grandfather came from Lewis.....part of the reason I think we feel such a affinity with the place. Over the years I have spent hours with The Elder Maciver in Laxay compiling our family tree. The Elder is an amazing man. He has grown up with stories about our family history and learned things "the old way" and he has a huge amount of verbal knowledge in his head. I set out when I first came here to get it all down onto paper, and latterly into the computer

Over the past 10 days or so I entered 218 names into some software called "Brothers Keeper" which is free and allows you to compile a family tree and then get reports out of it. It has been quite compulsive. Our "tree" was on a very long piece of lining paper, and was getting very scrappy and old, so it was a relief to get it onto the computer where I hope it will be less easily spoiled. Yesterday, I spent 2 hours with The Elder, and we added over 120 more names....all straight out of his and his wife's heads! We all ended up with a headache, but with a lot more information in

N spent yesterday afternoon with his new friend D, and D's Dad, Mr Bonfire, at the other end of the village. Quite by chance last week I was looking through some old papers I had kept with scribbled notes about the family tree, and I realised that my GG Grandmother, Mary Macaulay came from G, the village where we now live. In fact, I realised she came from number 4, which is where Mr Bonfire's mother lives.....and later we realised that Mr Bonfire and I are kissing cousins!! Can't quite work out what the connection would be called, but it is there, clear as day in the family tree. So, how weird. Not only did I not realise I had a connection to this village, but some of the people I have met since arriving are actually part of my distant family. N and his friend D were truly amazed to realise that they are not only friends but cousins

The boy had a ball yesterday, moving sheep around from one croft to another, feeding the lambs (last years, this years not quite here yet) and riding on his cousin's quad bike! He is really enjoying the outdoors and the freedom up here and we plan to make the very most of it during our year.

Archie the dog is going home tonight - we will miss him.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Sarah and Noah
Lovely pictures - we are looking forward to seeing it all again in June. How about some pictures of your house and details of its location?

You are certainly adding to your Christmas card list!

Lots of love from the old family.XX

JWM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JWM said...

My goodness! You bring a whole new meaning to the saying "it's a small world".

Would you like me to send the banjo directly to your house up there....!?

;-)