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Published: March 10th 2023
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Considering it is snowing outside, it’s incredible that we STILL have to take the doona out of the quilt cover and pile it in the corner! We even have those little top windows open to get fresh air. The owners specially left two extra space heaters and extra blankets here for us, but we don’t need them.
When we headed out this morning our car was covered in snow. Really thickly. It was 10am, and 2 degrees. Tom cleared the snow off the windows and the rest of it eventually left us as we journeyed.
What an amazing day! For those of you with itineraries, we didn’t follow it today. Because of the snow we’ve had to make adjustments, we start later in the day and lost yesterday, but today was a day of exploring some of our grandfather’s ancestors’ homelands. It’s really hard because we’ve never known much about Alec’s family. I know my dad called Alec’s dad “grandad Davidson” but at a time when any adult was given a courtesy title of some sort, that never struck me as odd. I’ve never found Alec’s baptism records, but I found his mother’s and grandmother’s. But Alec was Catholic.
Where did that come from? Is that why I can’t find lots of their records?
First off we visited St Hilda’s church at Lucker, a picturesque little village. We didn’t find her headstone, but this was where Alec’s maternal great grandmother (Jane Hutchinson-Allan) was buried. She died of cholera in 1853.
From Lucker we moved on to Bamburgh. A really gorgeous village totally dominated by a massive castle. We found St Aiden’s church where Alec’s mother, Elizabeth Gilroy was baptised in 1870, and her mother, Mabel Allan, was baptised in 1836.
Next stop was a beautiful beautiful village where Alec was born - North Sunderland. It almost merges into the village immediately to the east, on the coast, Seahouses. This is also where his mother, Elizabeth Gilroy, was born, and where she lived till after the 1901 census. Elizabeth’s father, James Gilroy, lived here from 1871 until his death in 1892. Mabel Allan-Gilroy died here in 1918 and had lived here from 1861. Charles Allan also lived here during the 1861 census.
We visited Chatton, where Alec’s maternal great grandparents (Charles and Jane Allan) lived and his grandmother (Mabel Allan) was born in 1838.
Last
stop was Kirk Yetholm (pronounced yet-um), home to the kings and queens of the Scottish gypsies from the 16th century. Our gypsy families were the Allan, Fall/Faa, Tait and Douglas families. At Yetholm Kirk (yes, we were back in Scotland!!) we had the baptisms of Charles Allan (1814, 3G), William Allan (1778, 4G) and Margaret Tait (1706, 6G) and the marriages of William Allan/Agnes Fall (1805, 4G), John Allan/Margaret Tait (1736, 6G), and William Allan/Margaret Knox (1702, 7G).
First stop here though was the Border Hotel with some amazing Cullen Skink for lunch! The cook came out to check with us about our meal and recognised our accents as being Australian. She lived at Lithgow for some time and also at Gunnedah!! Her husband was a mining engineer. What an amazing coincidence! Now she’s a cook at the Border Hotel In Kirk Yetholm. She told us about the heritage centre in town with lots of information on the gypsy families, but I think I might email them, we really don’t have time for chatting, because of the weather.
Then back home to our warm cottage. There is still snow laying about but we felt quite safe today. We
have been rained on, sleeted on and snowed on throughout our day, as well as needing sunnies for the glary sunshine.
Tonight we do some washing - clean clothes for packing.
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