A longing for the Auld Country

[starbkjrus]

Not sure where this belongs so ...well....here it is.....

Gentlemen & Ladies,

This may sound a little strange but here it goes:

I’ve been trying to delve into my family history for some time now and I’ve actually been making a bit of progress with it. Some sources good, some rather questionable but I’m now at the point that I seem to be able to tell the difference.

That's not what I’m writing about.

In the quest for history I’ve been reading a LOT of Scottish, English and European history books. Plodding my way through tomes that I never new existed have awakened a new interest that I really never knew I had - the history of Great Britain, Europe and Royalty. I can’t seem to get enough. Now while it is very interesting to me which Duke of Serbia was assassinated to start the Great War and which dowager Tsarina had to move from Russia to live in relative poverty in England after the Russian Revolution the thing that has riveted me is the history of Scotland. Not England, not Great Britain, not Ireland (of which I have ancestors from all) but Scotland.

(Daz, I think I finally have enough info together to send you so you can (as you so kindly offered) ask your friends in Lancashire about a Scots family come to greatness so far south of the border.)

In all this reading I’ve been doing (and prowling used book shops as well as spending a fortune at Barnes & Noble) I’ve found one common denominator. That’s what I’m writing about.

This is a feeling I’ve never had before and only read about. The feeling when reading history books and looking at pictures of the old country and all of a sudden you feel the fire in your veins. That this is YOU and where you come from. Not just a connectedness but real FIRE in the veins and a longing for the country.

I can trace my family back to the 11th. century when the Normans showed up in Great Britain. Piecing the interim together is the challenge.

Does anyone else know what I’m talking about? Not the need exactly to know where you come from but the deep down gut feeling when seeing pictures and reading history and just knowing that this is RIGHT? I do not believe in reincarnation but I DO believe in racial or genetic memory. Perhaps that is what I’m experiencing. I’ve never been to Great Britain but it just feels like home. We’ll be going there next June (2007) and I cannot wait to sink my senses into it.

Ok, just my ranting but this is new and interesting in my life so I thought I’d ask the questions. Kilts fall right in there too. It just feels right.

[Rob Wright]

I know what you mean.

Rob

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

Dee, not sure if I am feeling the same thing, but the family research that I have done leads me to believe that some of my roots are in Wales on my Father's side. I have not been able to exactly trace it back from generation to generation, but it feels right.

Also, my uncle on my Dad's side (no inconsistency, just wierd family relationships!) has done a lot of research and traced the family back to Scotland and Ireland, although most of his research relies on a family bible that no one can find anymore. Again, I would like to veify his research with actual official records, but I feel that he has it right, even if he has confused one James for another person of the same name.

All in all, it does make me feel more connected and I have the desire to fill in the holes in the research to the extent that a true researcher or historian would look at the results and find support for what I believe to be true, but it will be a long time to get that far!

[Mike1]

Dee, if you think you feel it burning inside you now, just you wait until you actually stand there. When you suddenly feel more at home than at any other time in your life.

Here are the lyrics of a special song, one that will somtimes allow our friends 'back home' understand how we can feel so passionately about our roots -

BORN BEYOND THE BORDER
(Maggie Innes/Gordon Menzies)

Some set sail for Africa with bibles in their hands
Some were forced to the Colonies to build a new Heartland
Even those on the work of the Lord could scarce forbear to weep
But the bitterest tears were shed by those who made way for the sheep

Chorus:
Though we’re born beyond the border don’t say we don’t belong
We’ve a legacy of Bruce and Wallace too
We’re the children of the Clearances the wanderers old and young
And the heart and soul of Scotland just like you

The names, the songs, the stories and the measure of their loss
Formed lullabies for children born beneath the Southern Cross
All across the mighty Rockies to the wide Pacific shore
The names of home, old towns reborn, spring into life once more

Chorus

So when you sing of the Great White Sheep this you must also know
While Scotland mourns her tragedy it was us that had to go
In exile now far away from the land of their Race’s birth
We’re a living flag of Andrew scattered all across the Earth

Chorus

[Wompet]

Racial and genetic memory -
Kilts feel right.
Gaitas gallicias sound good, but Northumbrian pipes sound right (mis apologias à Valencian Kilted, pero es mí verdad). Piob mohr sounds better.
Members of my father's family have lived in around cities, they've helped found one or two, but living in the country just feels right.
(Of course, 400 years of farming off and on might have something to do with that as well.)

Yeah, I have an idea what you mean.

[Livingston]

Dee, If you want to feel it without the cost of a trip across the pond, come out to the Longs Peak Highland Games in Estes Park, CO and listen to the pipes. The mountains, the weather, the kilts, the pipes......aahhhhhhh yes

[Alan H]

Yes...simply...

yes.

[GlassMan]

I totally understand what you mean. There are some things that just make feel right, no matter how far distant they are.

My life thus far has been full of such coincidences. My father isn't much into geneology but my Great Uncle is. However, since my Great Uncle lived in southern Virginia and my Father and Mother moved to Texas when I was a wee lad, it wasn't until much later that I had a chance to learn much about my ancestors.

Yet for all my life I have loved blue and green. Even more, it's specific shades of blue and green that appeal to me the most. So how shocked was I to see a tartan that just looked so beautiful to me and that used those exact two colors in it, only to then read on and discover that it's the Ancient version of my own clan tartan!

And I've always had a love to glass art even as a child. I couldn't keep me eyes off church windows. As I studied medieval history my love of stained glass only grew. Finally I learned how to make it and took to it like a duck to water. I hadn't been with my mentor for more than a few months when I was already being asked to make entire pieces by myself for her studio. And then, one day doing some searching on my own about the parts of my family that stayed in Scotland I discover that McKee's got into glass and even became quite famous for it in the 19th century! And that love of glass has reappeared several times in disparate locations throughout the globe wherever McKees have roamed.

And don't even get me started on the way the notes of a bagpipe stir my bosom. Yes, I said bosom. I'm still trying to lose weight and until I drop about 40 more it will still look like I truly have bosoms when I'm in a bathing suit. But yes, I love the sound of a piper.

And then the minute a kilt first wrapped around my waist I understood why I had been wanting to wear one since I was a child and I wondered why I had waited so long to indulge myself.

There are just somethings that can only be described as "in the blood" and no amount of distance or time can change that.

[GMan]

Dee,

I sense from where you speak. I know the holes in my family history are rather frustrating, but as been said earlier, once you feel the bagpipes, see the mist, you know it is in the blood.

It shall all come together, and I wish you well in the search.

[Pour1Malt]

Dee-

ai ken whit yur oan aboot ... yur richt alricht....

ai travel'de a' roon 'merica an roond England an it was fun...

but the first time ai set foot in Scotland... ai wuz hame!

an it is mai hame the noo!