Those Places Thursday - Peinchorran, Skye

While rooting through some of our own old family albums at the weekend I found a number of great shots of my great-grandparents' house on the Isle of Skye.  They (Donald and Isabella Macdonald) had moved there from the island of Harris just after the end of WW2 and my mother and aunt went often to visit them at their home at Peinchorran.  It was fairly remote and involved quite a journey to get there!  

You can get an idea of the location, spelled 'Piennachorian', on the 1832 map of the island [hint: find the island of Raasay first, then look across from the very bottom of Raasay to the opposite shore on the 'mainland' of Skye]

The picture above shows my mum 'being decorative' while her father Malcolm and uncle Donald look slightly more industrious - this must have been not long after my great-grandparents moved there, probably around 1946 (and yes, both men are smoking while they work!)  It was a fairly typical house of its period with the sloping upstairs ceilings that will be so familiar to any who have stayed in a house of this type.

This is probably one of my favourite old family photographs - it shows the house at Peinchorran and the typical contents of the ground outside it - I think that it's shots like this that can help to give a snapshot of 'real life' and 'real living' - milk pails, garden tools, and I think there's a butter churn in there somewhere too.  The two men coming around the corner are my mother's uncle, Angus Macdonald, and a man named Peter Nicolson - my mother remembers often watching for them coming home: they would return from the salmon fishing over the hill that you can see in the background, and would be watched for so that the family would know when to put the tea (dinner!) on. [if you look closely, the man on the left is carrying a bottle - my mother swears that it would be a bottle of milk that he was bringing home, but I like to think it might have been something a bit more fortifying for the walk home!]

Finding these two photos in a box really brought to life some of my ancestors and the place that they lived...and it also gave me some new questions to ask my mother about her own childhood and her memories of her family.  So, if you have any old photos at home, why not get them out and have a 'chin-wag' with someone who knows some of the people in them: you might get some new ancestor stories that you have never heard before...

Wordless Wednesday (My grandfather - at work and relaxing!)

At work: Malcolm Macdonald, at Peinchorran, Skye, c.1950...

...and relaxing: Malcolm Macdonald, at Edinburgh, c.1960

Tombstone Tuesday - Soldiers tending WWI graves

The National Library of Scotland has, as well as world class library and archival collections, a great photostream on flickr - I frequently get side-tracked on there when looking for something else entirely.

Their collection includes this striking images of soldiers tending the graves of fallen comrades, the original photograph reads: 

'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT. Soldiers during their spare time collect plants and flowers to decorate the graves of our heroes.'

So this one image is really representative of the many, many other tombstones and the unmarked resting places of the brave souls who fell in the war, and also a memorial to their comrades - who cared enough to labour at their graves.

You can see this image and other fantastic historical images on the National Library of Scotland's flickr photostream or at their own digital archive of WWI images.

Surname Saturday - My MacCrimmon Ancestors

I do not get a lot of time to spend on my own family history these days (it's like the old saying 'the cobbler's children go unshod' - well, my own ancestors too often remain unfound as I am so busy looking for other people's!)

But one of the lines of my family that does go back a way is that leading back to Iain Dubh MacCrimmon.  He is my great-great-great-grandfather and lived from c.1730 to 1822: not a bad lifespan really - I'll be quite happy if I make it that far!

He was twice married (some say 3 times, but I have not found much supporting evidence myself for this yet) and had a huge number of children - there must be an enormous number of descendants out there who are related to him.  

some of these children are said to be:

with his first wife 

(whose forename I cannot seem to track down, but she was a MacAskill):

DONALD MACCRIMMON

PADRUIG MOR MACCRIMMON

MALCOLM MACCRIMMON 

ELIZABETH MACCRIMMON 

JANET MACCRIMMON

FLORA MACCRIMMON 

MARION MACCRIMMON

CATHERINE MACCRIMMON  

with his wife, Ann Campbell, who he is said to have married in 1790 

(she is said to be of the line of the Campbells of Barbreck):

DUNCAN MACCRIMMON

PETER MACCRIMMON (my ancestor)

JOHN MACCRIMMON

EUPHEMIA MACCRIMMON

DONALD OG MACCRIMMON

(apologies to any that I have missed!  There is detailed information about these and other MacCrimmon lines at http://www.geocities.com/mccrimmon.geo/ which is a site that is really worth visiting).  

"Mac Cruimin". A plate illustrated by R. R. McIan, from James Logan's The Clans of the Scottish Highlands.

There are great legends about the history of these MacCrimmons, which I must admit I love, but which are not exactly easily verifiable!  One of the most famous legends is that the family originated in what is now Italy and that the founder of the family was from Cremona.  His name was supposedly Guiseppe Bruno.  His son Petrus Bruno was supposedly born at Cremona in the late 1400s and came to Ulster.  He took the name Cremon (after the place that he came from) and on his marriage in Ireland to a daughter of the famous piping family of MacKinnon he further altered his surname to MacCrimmon to bring it nearer to that of his wife.  This is great stuff, but not that easy to verify - so I'll probably not be booking a research trip to Italy any time soon! 

It seems at least possible that the name might also come from an attempt to render an old Norse name (possibly Hroðmundr) into Gaelic by adding the 'Mac' (son of) prefix to a variation of the Norse name, but I still love the Italian story...

My ancestor, Iain Dubh was a talented piper and a staunchly religious man.  Shortly before his death he wrote a pamphlet on 'The Failure of Christianity' which was said to have greatly annoyed the local clergy - the pamphlet is said to be buried with him.  I like having an outspoken ancestor - whether I agree with his principles or not!

Iain Dubh is sometimes said to be the very last of the hereditary MacCrimmon pipers.  The MacCrimmons had filled this roll to the MacLeods of Dunvegan, Skye, since at least the time of my 5x great-grandfather Patrick Og MacCrimmon (and possibly earlier).  Much of the information on the early lines of the family was published as A History of the Clan Mac Crimmon by GCB Poulter in 1938 and many of the early 'origin myths' of the family are found in this work (now available online at the MacCrimmon Family Registry).

There are tantalising references to MacCrimmons in earlier records: a 'Patrik Mcquhirryman, piper', mentioned in the Register of the Privy Council, vol.5 (1592–99) may be another ancestor (although he appears in Perthshire, the piping connection still seems promising).  There is also a bond of manrent dating from November 29, 1574 between Colin Campbell of Glenorchy and 'John Tailzoure Makchrwmen in the Kirktoun of Balquhidder and Malccolme pyper Mackchrwmen in Craigroy' - another piper: it was the 'family trade'...

Iain Dubh would have taught at the once famous Borreraig Piping College, of which nothing now remains, but a memorial cairn stands at Borreraig - it was built in 1933 after donations being gathered from around the world - a fitting tribute to a fine family.

  © Copyright Richard Dorrell and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

My own work on the MacCrimmon family is far from over - it is a project to which I return at regular intervals and I am always happy to find new family members or discover new facts about any descendants.  I suppose that a lot of people have a 'favourite line' in their ancestry...and these MacCrimmons might just be mine...