My mother-in-law, Helen van Pletzen (nee Begg), has been writing her memories of her grandparents and other relatives. She has emailed two–Granny and Daddy Mackie–her maternal grandparents, Margaret McDonald Welsh and Andrew Mackie of New Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland. She has a real gift for writing memories, I think. She is great at capturing memories that express the personalities of her subjects. Read her rememberances of Granny Mackie and Daddy Mackie.
As a result of reading Granny Mackie’s history, I started doing some research on the Mackie family. I’ve been surprised at how relatively easy it has been. I’ve been looking mostly at Scottish census records (on Ancestry.com), and then finding birth, marriage and death records to verify that information (at ScotlandPeople).
As fun as it has been to really push the family tree back several generations, I must say that I need to learn to pace myself. ScotlandsPeople is a GREAT website for Scottish genealogy, but it’s not free. It’s a pay-per-view site, and I’ve been doing a lot of viewing! When payday comes around, I usually enter a spurt of Scottish genealogy that lasts about a week. That’s about how long it takes before I start worrying about how much money I’m spending and what bills may or may not get paid now.
Now, I have a whole new reason to look forward to payday!
Dreams of our Ancestors 