A Family Story (Myth?) and Question about Gaelic Languages

[Alisdair]

My Great-great grandfather was born around Aberfeldy in the 1850s. The descendant of generations of crofters, he was the first in the family to get a higher education. This landed him a job as a surveyor in Edinburgh, where he was recruited to manage a number of slate mines in Wales. He picked up Welsh very quickly, could relate well to the miners as a result of his own humble background and was a very popular man, as a result. The common roots of many of the words in Scots Gaelic and Welsh (someone further up mentioned Ty/Tigh for house) certainly gave him a head start.