THOUGHTS ON...
About the author Diane Lindsay has been addicted to family and local history for more years than she cares to admit, still teaches it to anyone who will listen, and often slips it cheekily into her creative writing class. She has enough brick walls to keep her going for many years and plans to live long enough to knock down every one. She finds it very hard to take herself too seriously.
It’s been a funny old year. Dour and dreich* in many ways, but genealogically speaking, it’s probably been my best year yet, with brick walls tumbling, missing links discovered and dainty little finishing touches of the kind that bring joy to all family historians added to our joint Lindsay/Veasey family tree.
I’ve discovered a new 2x greatgranddad and a lost 2x great-grandma and a photograph of my husband’s great aunt Lizzie McKinstry. She emigrated from Kilwinning in Ayreshire to Pennsylvania in 1903, and it neatly confirms a family tale that when my mum-in-law was a little girl in Scotland, during WW1, parcels arrived regularly from relatives in America, although she couldn’t remember who they were.