About Rosemary's Family Tree
Please sign in to see more. I started this Family Tree project in about 2003 and it's just grown and grown. From Scotland, Britain, Canada and Australia, branches have been added in New Zealand and USA, and I'm delighted to say that I've finally found Gow descendants in South Africa. It has been particularly satisfying to find
relatives on my father's side of the family as I knew so little about him. I hope that one (or more) of you will continue the Tree when I'm no longer around as I think our heritage and ancestry is an important part of who we are.
I'm particularly indebted to John Cotterill (Dyer connections), Dennis Harding (Laurie connections in Northumberland and USA), Stu Davidson, Trish Vincent, Jennifer Marsom, Nicola Pikari and Marilyn Bartlett and her wonderful old photos and great anecdotes (New Zealand Lawrie connections),Coralie Miles and Janelle Lendon (Miles/Lendon connections), Margaret Cooper and Janet Welham (Cobban/Good connections in Scotland, USA and Australia) and Catriona Drummond and Madge Pae (Edinburgh Urquhart connections). Willie Lawrie in the "other" Perth has been a huge help even though he has no direct connection with my Lawries.
If you are related to my Urquhart line don't forget to check out Euphemia Urquhart (nee Yule) - our convict in the closet!
If my research kindles an interest in your past or helps you to locate even one ancestor then it will have been worthwhile.... please read on.......
The Chosen
We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before.
We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us.". How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying - I can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it.
It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us.
It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are.
So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before."
by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943."
For all those with Scottish ancestry worldwide, particularly my friends I met at The Gathering from so many places....the words of the song say it all....enjoy it sung by Gaberlunzie
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