My Scottish Roots

Introduction

I was fortunate to be able to spend time with one of my great-grandmothers, who lived until I was in my early 20s. We great-grandkids knew her as GG. GG was born in Lerwick in 1907. In 1912, her parents moved the family to Scotland’s mainland. She had my grandmother in 1928, and they left Scotland for Canada in 1930. So in 2024, when my wife and I were planning a trip to Scotland, I reviewed GG’s memoirs and added the places she wrote about to our itinerary. Here’s what I was able to find.

Lerwick (infant years)

I found the home on GG’s birth certificate - 48 Burgh Road, Lerwick. I would have loved to knock on the door, but it was pretty early in the day - we had just arrived on the morning ferry. I pictured the current residents rushing to get their kids ready for school, so we just took a quick photo and continued exploring the town.

I also looked for the Lerwick homes that GG’s parents (or, my great-great-grandparents) lived. I learned that in the 1880s, a lot of Lerwick street names changed - Burgh Road remains the same, but most of the other addresses my mother had found on various birth certificates have changed. Here’s a few articles on what happened: Old Lerwick Street Names, Lerwick Street Names.

Aberdeen (childhood years, around age 5)

GG wrote:

A garden fete which took place at Duthie Park, Aberdeen where Queen Mary and King George V were opening a flower show, lingers with everlasting beauty in my mind. Our regret was that my brother John and I had sneaked into the park and one of the caretakers sent us home in a hurry.

As we walked through Duthie Park, we came across this statue of John Macleod, recognizing his co-discovery of insulin in 1922.

This statue was unveiled in 2023. What was a bit interesting for us is that we’ve always associated the names Banting and Best with the discovery of insulin - we’d never heard of Macleod. My kids went to C. H. Best Junior Middle School in Toronto. As Wikipedia presents it, Banting and Best discovered Insulin at the University of Toronto in John Macleod’s lab.

Breich (childhood years)

GG wrote:

Near Westcalder, the Breich Toll House, an historic house (where tolls were charged in former days for the use of the roads) became our home, and education was started at Blinkbonnie School two miles away. For me, this experience was fraught with disillusionment, and some highlights. Older pupils very often teased me, thoroughly soaking me in puddles, and forcing me to steal turnips from a farmer’s field. They later scraped them with sharp stones to skin them. I was then allowed to share them and they were like stolen apples, to our delight.

It is kind of neat to think of a home in a building that would have been considered historic in the 1910s. I am pretty sure we found what was once the Breich Toll House, and GG’s home in the 1910s, identified as the Breich Bridge Check T.P. on the 1854 Map of Edinburghshire, Sheet 9, National Library of Scotland.

Cross referencing with a current day map, we were able to identify the toll house.

As for the Blinkbonnie School, I found a reference to a school about 2 miles away on the 1892-1914 Ordnance Survey. The Blinkbonnie School is now a parking lot for hikers.

Motherwell (teen years)

GG’s memoirs speak of walking to the Clyde Bridge in Motherwell with friends on Sunday evenings. We drove across it on our drive in from Glasgow. GG’s marriage certificate lists 28B Calder St, Motherwell as her address. This neighbourhood has been redeveloped, and the street no longer exists. I drove around, and there doesn’t appear to be anything still standing that would have been there in the 1920s.

On old maps, you can see Calder intersecting Roman Rd, South of Milton.

Today, that rail line adjacent to Calder Street, along with Calder street itself, is completely gone.

Aberdeen (early adulthood)

Finally, we come to the home listed on my Grandmother’s birth certificate - 20 Kintore Place, Aberdeen.

We took over the renting of the house, giving two rooms to his kinfolk, while we had the kitchen and bed-sitting room.

This home is a 40 minute walk to Duthie Park. Did GG, as a young mother, take my grandmother to Duthie Park as a baby?

Shortly after my grandmother was born, they decided to move to Canada.

It was sad days for our families when we decided to emigrate to Canada, but we had high hopes for the future.