I’m off for the summer and have been trying to delve a little more into the Hannas of Ards Peninsula so you can expect to see some additions there.

Perusing Find My Past’s newspaper archives I came across a form of obituary for Janet Alexander Douglas, daughter of William Douglas and his wife Catherine Nicholson. Interestingly, it was published in the John O’Groats Journal on 19th February 1909 and gives a warm and reasonably detailed account of the life of this young woman. Further…

I came across this snippet on Find My Past today, from the People newspaper of Sunday 14th March 1937. It is an appeal for information on John, presumably from some relative of his sister Maria as she had married a man named Daniel. Maria herself lived until 1977 and his mother lived on for some…

I gather that nearly all the links to pictures, trees and drawings etc are broken. I will do my best to restore them but it looks like each one needs put back individually so it is going to take quite some time. If you see a label which is wrong please let me know- often…

I have been exploring Dad’s DNA connections to people seemingly related through the Baxter family, many of whom disappeared from the records in Scotland. This has involved a little, if expensive, look at ScotlandsPeople but much more exploration via Ancestry. Unfortunately it has proven very difficult to locate birth records for many putative descendants. The…

Less than a year after the passing of Isabella McEwan her brother Douglas has left this world. I was able to attend his funeral in Glasgow recently and listened to a wonderful testimony about his life and his character. As the minister said, he touched many lives for the better as a Social Worker and…

The 1921 census has FINALLY been released by ScotlandsPeople, with the year almost at an end. I’ve had a quick look at the Douglas household (technically the Adam household) at 930 Argyle St just to confirm everyone was there. Grandad was a traveller for a wholesale stationer. This one is a surprise- Charles Douglas the…

The page on the descendants of Charles Douglas the Blacksmith and Jane Ann Clark has acquired a new member in the form of an illegitimate daughter to John Douglas; she was born in Glasgow in 1898. This girl went to Canada, married and had several children who have living descendants today!

I learned of the death of Isabella (Ishbel) McEwan this week, former librarian at the Mitchell Library and cousin of my late father. Ishbel was 90. She was an intelligent, articulate woman with a sharp mind and an eye and ear for detail. She was an invaluable source of information for me in my research…

After my visit to the Belfast City Cemetery a couple of weeks ago I have added a bit to the relevant page, including a photo of the unmarked grave of James Robert Brown in November 1918. He was one of many victims of the so-called Spanish Flu.