Identity in the Scottish Diaspora

[neloon]

Your opinion means more than many to me, being, I believe, from near the Sinclair end of Scotland.

Bill,
This made me sit back and think - XMarks has to be good for something. First, I had to tie down in my head where the Sinclair focus might be apart from "way up north"! You were a bit dispersed but I finally decided on Wick. Now, Scotland is a tiny country but that shouldn't make outsiders think we've all been everywhere. Wick is 198 miles away by road estimated to take 4.5 hours. Jock is 166 miles from Wick and it would take him 3 hours and 50 minutes. (And Jock and I are separated by 147 miles or 3.5 hours.) Anyway, I've never been as far north as Wick (in Scotland) and I don't remember being in Fort William within the last 50 years or so. I go southwards endlessly (Edinburgh, Glasgow and, especially, St. Andrews) and I do annually go to visit a friend over in Gairloch (165 miles = 3.75 hours). Anyway, thank you for valuing my opinion, but I don't think that has much to do with nearness to Sinclair lands.

Naturally in my researches I noticed how nomadic the Sinclairs were from Norway (where before that?) to France to southern Scotland to Orkney - almost back to the beginning. Did they, at each stage, hang on to their last roots?* Didn't stop them fighting Norway in the 1260s - a country they had left a few hundred years earlier. (They went on to roast a bishop live and were on the wrong(?) side at Culloden but we won't hold that against you!)

* Just to prove we're still on topic!

Alan