Step into Sheila's Time Machine and take a trip backwards into the past!

For a different approach to my family history, added October 2005, click here. This page may still be of interest but some of the external links no longer work so use with caution!
Meet the Crystal Sisters, the inter-marrying Ogilvies, the migrating McCallums and the extremely settled Youngs.
The year 2004: somewhere in central Scotland
The aftermath of war: 1950 in Brighton, Sussex
1900: the Twilight of the Victorians
Back to 1850: Mining and migration
Approaching the outer limits: 1800
Links and resources;Contact us
The year 2004: somewhere in central Scotland
My brother and I started to research our family history a few years ago. We were almost certain that all our ancestors would turn out to be Scottish, right back to the beginning of recorded time, so it has come as a bit of a shock this year to find someone from Norfolk nestling in the branches of the family tree. However following up this lead has been extremely pleasant, involving as it did a visit to the depths of rural Norfolk and a day spent at the excellent Record Office in Norwich.

Please note that the Perry side of the family originated mainly in London, and are outside the scope of this website.

The aftermath of war: 1950 in Brighton, Sussex
The Morrison family (Thomas John Morrison, college lecturer, Christina Montgomery Morrison, children Sheila aged 2 and Ian, the new baby) lived in a semi-detached mock Tudor house in a quiet part of Brighton, Sussex.
The parents of the family, both Scottish, had met during the war at Wigan College, in Lancashire, where both had gone to find teaching work in a time of high unemployment. They married in 1942 and moved to Brighton in the middle of the war. Thomas, my father, was in a reserved occupation (science teaching) which meant he was exempt from the call-up and during the war did ARP work in his spare time. My mother remembers the attacks of the V2 bombs and the metal table-style shelter they sometimes slept in.
A couple of years later in the early 1950s, the family had the opportunity to move back to Scotland and lived in Wormit, Fife, with a panoramic view of the Tay Bridge and the River Tay. My mother was able to visit her mother Mary Ann Williamson (nee McCallum) in Dunfermline, with varying degrees of ease depending on what stage the railway cuts had reached. In the days when trains still ran to two different Dunfermline stations I can remember having to change trains at Thornton Junction on cold nights, shivering by the old-fashioned round coal fired stove that supposedly heated the waiting room. A more exciting aspect of the journey was crossing the Tay Bridge at night - especially on stormy nights - and looking down at the ruined pillars of the first Tay Bridge underneath in the water.


1900: the Twilight of the Victorians
In or around 1900 the McCallum family had their photograph taken, in a typically Victorian studio arrangement. See the Fife Post site to view the picture. There were eleven children, all of whom survived. My grandmother was one of the oldest: Mary Ann Murray McCallum. She told me once that she had wanted to be a nurse but had to go and work in 'the store' presumably so that she could help to support the younger members of the family. Her sister Jenny, next in age, became a suffragette in Edwardian times and later a political activist in the Labour Party. Jenny and one of the older brothers of the family, David, later emigrated to South Africa.
Their parents were John McCallum, a stone mason who had worked on the Forth Bridge and Janet (nee Hutcheson).

Around the time this peaceful family photo was being taken, my grandfather Peter Williamson, whose parents had both died young, leaving him and his brother James to be brought up by his sisters Kirsty and Betsy, was in the process of joining up with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. He spent most of his army service in India (nearly 5 years) with a spell of just over a year in South Africa.
My mother was named after Kirsty Williamson; naming tradition dictated that she should be Montgomery after her grandmother, but her parents decided they could justify going against tradition in this case.

On the other side of the family, the Morrisons are now known to have lived in or around the parish of Campsie, Stirlingshire in the mid to late 19th century when my grandfather Thomas was born. He later became a bank accountant which probably explains why he moved about so much; he fought in the First World War and eventually died in Inverness in 1926. My father's mother, Jessie Anne Ogilvy Annand Morrison (nee Young) was from a farming family on the Angus/Perthshire borders and at the time of her birth in 1879 the Young family lived at Balmyle Farm, near Meigle.
My brother discovered recently that she and her husband, another Thomas Morrison, are commemorated by a gravestone in Meigle churchyard, although neither of them actually died in Meigle.

Back to 1850: Mining and migration
Around 1850, both the Williamson and Chrystal families were based in Auchterderran, in the heart of the Fife coalfield. Montgomery Chrystal (later married to James Williamson and mother of Kirsty, Betsy, James and Peter) had 2 sisters, Isabella and Christina. Her mother was Christian (nee McLean) and her father Robert Chrystal.
Members of the Chrystal family and of the Muirs (Christian McLean's grandmother's family) were Mormon converts, at least one of whom is said to have taken part in the first Mormon trek to Salt Lake City.
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James Williamson's father, another James, was a hammerman at a smithy and his mother was Elisabeth Drummond.
The McCallums lived in Inverkeithing, Fife, where they worked mainly in the quarry, having migrated from Kilmichael Glassary, Argyllshire, at some point since the birth of James McCallum in the early 19th century. James married Mary Ann Murray (born in Port William, Wigtownshire), daughter of John Murray, a merchant seaman, and Mary Ann Dennis, from Burnham Overy, Norfolk, daughter of a shoemaker Lee Dennis. James and Mary Ann McCallum's first child was named Mary Ann Dennis McCallum.
The Ogilvies, Annands and Youngs lived in Angus, with the Ogilvies already concentrated in Lintrathen. My great-great-grandfather David Ogilvy, who died in 1866, was a farmer at Peel, Lintrathen. His mother and wife were both Annands, his mother Martha from Clintlaw, only a few miles from Peel, and it is possible, though not certain, that his wife Janet Annand was also his cousin. We are currently studying David Ogilvy's will, obtained from the Scottish Documents website, to try and find out more about this branch of the family.
The Morrisons were in Campsie, Stirlingshire at this time. Thomas Morrison (my great-grandfather) married Isabella Kincaid in 1860. The Kincaid family were definitely native to this part of the world, according to a charter lost in the mists of time. The Morrisons have been slightly more difficult up to now since we tended to look for a Western Isles connection, but apparently there were Morrisons in the lands of Lennox as well, a completely different family. My great-grandfather's occupation appears as 'clerk' in his son Thomas's death certificate and clerk in a calico printing works in the 1881 census. It is also possible that he was the Thomas Morrison who was president of the Lennoxtown Friendly Victualling Society (possibly the original Co-op) at some point during the late 19th century, but this is purely idle speculation! Certainly his grave and that of Isabella Kincaid are in the very impressive churchyard at Lennoxtown, formerly in Stirlingshire but now in East Dunbartonshire.
Approaching the outer limits: 1800
This is where our research is starting to reach its limits in some cases, though in others we can tentatively trace people further back.
The Chrystals came from Dysart before some moved to Auchterderran, presumably to work in the mines. Preliminary research suggests they might have originated from the Largo area where there's a place called Balchrystie.
Christian McLean's family were part of a close-knit group of Fife mining families; her father was Thomas McLean and her mother was Montgomery Cook. (The use of Montgomery as a female first name seems to be specific to this group, as far as we know, starting probably with Montgomery Japp in mid 18th century.) The Cooks may originally have been from Clackmannan, and it is possible that they had been miners since the very early days. Christian McLean's grandmother on the Cook side was Christian Muir from another mining family.
The McLean side is the subject of a collaborative project involving at least 6 McLean descendants, scattered all over the world. The latest research suggests that the name may have been McLay at one time.
The Williamsons were a rural family from north-west Fife; when James Williamson senior was born in c 1802 they lived in Collessie, now a picturesque conservation village between Auchtermuchty and Cupar. Previous generations seem to have come from Falkland, further west.
In 1800 the McCallums were still in Kilmichael Glassary, Argyllshire, very close to the Auchindrain folk museum and to many prehistoric sites, mostly stones with 'cup and ring' markings. We are not sure if it's pure coincidence that some of the descendants of this side of the family worked with stone later in the century.
The Ogilvies and Annands were well entrenched in Lintrathen at this point. David Ogilvie's father Thomas was also a farmer, possibly also at Peel, and the Young family were also farmers, with Thomas Young having been a farm grieve in the early 19th century at Eassie and Nevay.
Duncan Morrison, probably the father of Thomas Morrison, married at Clachan of Campsie in 1818. This may have been his second marriage. According to the 1851 census for Campsie he was born in Comrie, Perthshire. His grave is in the picturesque graveyard at Clachan of Campsie, near the Kincaid Mausoleum.
We are still following up the Norfolk connection. John Murray married Mary Ann Dennis (b 1800) in Burnham Overy church in 1819. It is likely that his career as a sailor took him round the coasts of Britain, though this is still to be checked out. The Dennis family seem to have been entrenched in north-west rural Norfolk.

September 2004: Sheila's ancestor list (new version). Please contact me if you think you have a link.

Links and resources
To start your own internet research into Scottish family history, check out the following websites:
Scotlands People: you can use the searchable database of the Scottish Record Office here on payment of a fee by credit card. A much improved service including downloadable images of statutory records such as death entries and census returns.
Family Search Internet Genealogy Service: search the databases here for free. The information has been compiled by the Mormon Church as part of its policy of retrospectively baptising its own members' ancestors. Deaths are not recorded here but birth and marriage information has been taken from church and civil records and in some cases gaps filled in with census data.
You can also search the Scottish Documents website for free to find out whether one of your ancestors' wills is available. Most Scottish wills have now been digitised and can be purchased online. Note that most people in previous centuries did not make a will.

Other resources
If you are interested in family history in Fife and Angus, as I am, the Tay Valley Family History Society and Fife Family History Society cover these areas. There are also e-mail lists for Fife, Angus, Argyll among others (SCT-FIFE-L, SCT-ANGUS-L, SCT-ARGYLL-L) which are very active. Look on Rootsweb (http://www.rootsweb.com) for details.
In the real world...
Census records on microfilm and microfiche are held at various places including certain Scottish libraries.

You can also visit Register House in Edinburgh and view birth, death and marriage certificates for yourself (a more reliable method than searching on the internet in general).

If you want to trace the ownership of property, then you'll need to visit the National Archives of Scotland - have a look at their website on http://www.nas.gov.uk for information about their collections.

Military records for the whole of the UK and other national records are held at the Public Record Office in London, where you can search their databases, view microfilmed and original documents for free once you've obtained a reader's ticket. It's a good idea to check their website first at http://www.pro.gov.uk for preliminary information.

Useful books include the volumes of the Statistical Accounts of Scotland, which are organised by parish within county and provide a lot of very interesting background information. NOW SCANNED IN AND PUBLISHED ON THE INTERNET!
If you want to get in touch with us, please send an e-mail Return to Home for Stray Dreams