SIB FOLK NEWS NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY No 80 December 2016 P. 4 P.18 P. 7 P. 7 P.14 P. 8 P.17 P.10 P. 3 GRAPHICS JOHN SINCLAIR 2 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY Issue No 80 December 2016 ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY NEWSLETTER No 80 DECEMBER 2016 COVER SIB HIGHLIGHTS PAGE 2 From the Chair PAGE 3 Anne's article brought the Orkney memories flooding back. PAGES 4, 5 & 6 From Jackie Brown faces marriage, call-up and war. the Chair PAGE 7 What's in a name? Welcome to the December issue of the Sib Folk News. I can’t believe Maybe you know? that it is that time already as we have enjoyed the best harvest weather PAGES 8 & 9 we’ve had for ages. So much started Our winter programme is already under way and I would like to thank in Upper Garth, Quholm, Stromnness Tom Muir for his very interesting talk on the local traditions around birth, marriage and death which ranged from poignant to extremely amusing. PAGES 10 & 11 The October meeting was a tribute to our ancestors who fought in William Stevenson the Somme 100 years ago and Brian Budge, our speaker, displayed Bremner Royal Navy Shipwright his encyclopedic knowledge of the battle. Brian has also gathered information of all the fallen in WW1 and has requested us to ask if any of PAGES 12 & 13 our members have photographs of their relatives who died in the war. If This will keep many you have he would be very grateful if you sent him a copy. members occupied for ages The Society continues to grow with over 1500 paid up members and we look forward to our 20th Anniversary next year. We plan to issue a special PAGES 14, 15 & 16 edition of our Sib Folk News taking a nostalgic look back to October 1996 In memory of my when Gavin Rendall called an open meeting to see if there would be any grandfather, Bill Annal interest in starting up a local Family History group. It has been quite a PAGE 17 journey from then to date. Do you recognise any I would like to take this opportunity to thank John Sinclair our Editor who of these has kept up the high standard of our magazine, Jackie Harrison our Orkney warriors? Secretary , George Gray our treasurer, Dave Higgins our Webmaster, PAGES 18, 19 & 20 the committee and last, but certainly not least, all our volunteers —they Researching my all play their part in keeping the Society running whether it's manning the grandfather — you couldn't make this up! office, helping our members with their research, arranging the meetings, keeping our website and facebook updated or making the tea. PAGE 21 Finally, I would like to to wish you all a Merry Christmas, a healthy and Odds and ends and an peaceful New Year and happy researching in 2017. interesting photo labelled 'Lyness 1950' PAGE 22 Progress with the Robert Mainland project and a Anne Rendall great Stromness photo. PAGE 23 Who, what, when where? PAGE 24 Membership etc. Issue No.80 December 2016 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY 3 Lillian Peace, Member No 1414 sent this letter after reading Anne Cormack’s article on the Sanday Free Kirk in Sib News No 79 Dear Anne, Later he went to Toronto, Canada. What a delight for me to read your article “Sanday My grandfather’s male siblings also left Oyce: Sinners Saved as Free Kirk Flourishes” in issue no.79 of William (1851-1907) to the U.S.A. becoming a stonemason the Orkney Family History Society magazine. and contractor for bridges and canals in Marseilles, Illinois, and Robert (1863- 1950) to Edinburgh where he Of the 30 or so names you mention in your article, became a prominent master draper. it appears that 6 in the 1843 time frame are in my ancestral database researched by my husband. Grandfather John Peace married Sarah Cozens Mills (1849-1930) in St. John’s at the Anglican Cathedral Two are my 2nd great grandfathers as elders of St. John the Baptist in 1876. They had 9 children of (John Peace, 1794-1859 and John Omond, 1791-1857), whom 7 were born in Newfoundland (2 stillborn & 2 died also as elders a father-in-law (John Tullock, 1811- in infancy). The last 2 children were born in Toronto, 1865) of one of my 1st great cousins 2x removed, and Ontario, Canada, where my mother Sara Lillian Peace a maternal grandfather (James Garrioch, 1808-1889) was born on August 26. 1888. of the wife of a 1st cousin 2x removed. In your article, James Garrioch’s wife (Elizabeth Skea, 1815-1910) My mother graduated from the 1910 normal also a maternal grandparent, received a token for her class of the Lillian Massey School of Household Science first time, as did my great grandmother (Janet Omond, and Art in Toronto. Her postgraduate dietician studies 1823-1865). were at the University of Toronto. She then undertook to establish and manage a new cafeteria for the Young Moreover, 9 of the remaining surnames (but not the Christian Women’s Association in Toronto, which was a specific persons you listed) also occur frequently in our great success serving up to 700 nutritious and appetizing Sanday database! Viz: Anderson, Drever, Hay, Linklater, dinners and suppers a day for working girls. Moodie, Muir, Sclatter/Slatter Scott and Towrie. After WW1 began, Sara Lillian Peace was appointed the Organizing Dietician for the Military Hospitals I am 82 and my husband is 84. We and John’s Commission, Canada which operated, directly or son Guy, who acted as chauffeur, have visited Sanday, indirectly, 31 hospitals and sanitaria across Canada. Orkney twice in the last 10 years and met many distant During this time she met Captain Tom Harbron (1887- relatives. Thanks to Tommy Garriock, we were kindly 1949), Quartermaster of the largest military hospital in directed to the Burness cemetery and the right crofts Canada, the Base Hospital on Gerrard Street in Toronto to meet Ian and Bunty Dearness at Oyce and Knowe, and its three annexes. They married in 1921, her original Margaret Tulloch and her son Billy at Quivals Farm and fiancé having been killed earlier in the war. My parents a number of others to meet distant relatives or extended had 4 children, of which I am the fourth. Mother died in family. We also visited Woo, the site of the derelict 1956. Omond croft and boatworks and many other sites of My visits to Orkney, and in particular Sanday, fulfilled a interest on Sanday and also on the mainland where we life-long dream of mine (and my late mother) to visit the stayed at Stenness with Alfie and Lilias Mather on our land of our ancestral family. I also enjoyed the magnificent second trip. Lilias is a 3rd cousin 1x removed. skyscapes, seascapes, historic sites, the clean fresh air and the warm hospitality extended. My grandfather was John Peace, 1849-1926, eldest son of William Peace, 1824-1869 and Janet I will be interested if you plan to write more stories Omond, 1823-1865. He didn’t like farming and with his about Sanday and am willing to share anything in our parents both dead and his uncles and aunt running the Sanday genealogy database. farm, he decided to emigrate from Orkney and he sailed from Glasgow to Newfoundland in 1870 on the ship With warmest regards, Hiburnia to St. John’s where he worked for a draper. Lillian Peace 4 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY Issue No.80 December 2016 Part 5 of the Jackie Brown story Maria Sinclair Flett, the love of my life and the girl in the small hours of the morning. It left little time for I would soon marry, was the daughter of James Flett courting. Jim’s wife Mymie, after the milking of the cows, from Northbigging and Thomima Sinclair from Beboran had a ritual with small bowls which she would fill with who owned the farm of Kingshouse, in Harray. The farm milk for the porridge in the morning,individual bowls for of Kingshouse was, by Orkney standards, a large farm each person. Each evening she would have to count heads. of about 200 acres. It stood high up in the Harray hills I remember on almost three quarters of a mile from the main road. As one occasion well as commercial cattle and 100 ewes there was a herd she laid out of pure Aberdeen Angus cattle, fourteen bowls. the bulls of which were sold each There would year at the Bull Sale in Kirkwall. be a wonderful There were also a dozen breeding head of cream pigs and a few hundred hens. The on the following farm had been bought by Maria’s morning. father in the early 1920s, at which After my visit time he was also a road contractor to see Maria responsible for the roads in on her 21st the West Mainland of Orkney. birthday on 23rd Kingshouse Farm, Harray Although he had no engineering January, I would come by bus from Stromness where I qualifications, he obviously had spent my weekends with my parents. Then as the weather engineering ability as he was improved I would cycle the twelve or so miles - quite a called upon by the County Council chore in strong winds, until, after my Rousay holiday, I to build completely new roads in had purchased my beloved 500cc Rudge. Things became Sandwick, the islands of Egilsay much easier in my courtship and much more frequent.