Friday, October 31, 2008

We Are Family by Sister Sledge

Happy Halloween
BOO !
Boo Pictures, Images and Photos
Ok, lame, lame, lame I can but agree.

Genealogy.
I started digging into my family history last year in the misguided hope of discovering some ancestral link which would justify my rebellious tendencies.
Me and Willy Wallace, have to be related, it's the only explanation.
Wm Wallace Pictures, Images and Photos
AND you can see the Mel Gibson lookielikee can't you!
Cost a bloody fortune to do the research.
I have to pay the Scottish Records Office lots of dollars to look at birth, marriage and death certificates on line.
They don't make it easy, believe me.
(Rewrite) They don't make the research easy, they do however make paying for it as easy as one click of an "Enter" key.
It's daylight robbery, evening thievery, night time they've got you big time, glass of vino in one hand, clicking that "Ent" key with the other, like a demented chicken pecking Willys' eyes out and to hell with the credit card bill.
On a few occassions waking up and wondering who the feck "Angus McTavish" was and why the hell I'd spent $50 on him.
If any of you dear readers know a "McTavish" point them over here, they're feck all to do with me and I want reimbursed!
Actually it was a lot of fun and I turned up some interesting ( if not, Wallace Family Origin) facts.
1.More unwed grannies than you could shake a stick at!
2.Couple of shot-gun weddings referred to as "Marriage by Sheriff Warrant"
3. Every single male on both sides until the 1920's worked with horses, it must be in
my genes :)
4. No family member on either side moved out with a 20mile radius from 1637-1951.
5. 1637 was as far back as I could get.
scotland Pictures, Images and Photos
(We never moved out of the Wee Scottie Dogs Head. Can you see it? A prize for anyone who can! )
Pre 1600 marriage records become parish entries and do not have the names of the couples parents thus the task becomes more convoluted and I'm too poor to care.
When I manage to pay off the ginormous credit card bills, I'll resume my research.
Only between 8a.m and 5p.m though...yeah right, look out McTavish I'll be back.



4 comments:

Mike said...

"Marriage by Sheriff Warrant"

Never heard this before. I guess it's kind of like an 'arranged' marriage.

AbbotOfUnreason said...

Lewis looks like a whole Scottie dog (upside down, facing north).

The Orkneys look like a dancing clown.

All of the North looks like a razorback hog, with a front foot somewhere around Dornoch.

That bit just to the West of Arran -- never knew what that was called -- looks like a, uhm, a "leg".

So, I'm going to guess Fife. I could see a little ear up at St. Andrews. The Kingdom had the best bike maps in all the UK. Imagine rolling on your bike into Crail and eating a fresh-caught lobster right on the pier. (Not me. I hate shellfish. But the Brunette seemed to like it.)

fiona said...

@Mike - Arranged because the chick is preggers and the Parish refuses to support her and demands the name of the father who then is forced to marry by county sheriff warrant. Now ya know.
@Abbot- LOL we are a veritable artists palate! No friggin clue why I put a German? map of Scotland up!
I'll announce the winner and prize on Monday:-)

weirdtales said...

You go fiona Braveheart..I think the Dogs Head is the area North of Loch Ness..it's got a major overbite and appears to be eating the rabbit shet islands..if I'm right send me my feckin prize! I commented on this once before, but being the American Idiot that I am, it didn't work..WT