Sib Folk News Issue 19 September 2001 Contents Page 2 From the Chairman and the Editor - 3 A FlawsFamil y 8 A Dearness Family Canadian Archaeologist leads 9 A Grandson's Legacy 13 Summer Outing team excavating Viking 14 The Story Tellers long house at Quoygrew, 15 William Groundwater 17 Correspondence 20 finding the Best Westray Genealogy Programme Dr Barrett explained to the Editor that the remains of Pictish, Viking 22 Orkney's Gravestones and medieval remains have been found at Quoygrew. 22 Westrays Lost The Viking middens (refuse heaps) containing, ash, shells and large Mariners fish bones, have been exposed by the sea. There is also evidence of soil having been transported to the site to deepen soil depth in adjacent fields. The Newsletter of the Orkney Family History Society 1 usually few and far between spondence but there are lots Frcm the though! of stories that could be Apart from the ongoing work shared. One just has to do a Chairman in the office we have kept a bit of eavesdropping at the low profile in the public this public meetings to know that. "Read any good books summer. As usual we have We are considering entering lately?" had many callers whom we our next journal into the com- I have just started reading yet were able to help. There were petition run by the Scottish another Orkney book which many from Australia. One of Association of Family History came out this year. "In My our visitors this year was none Societies. There's a chal- Small Corner-Memories of other than our trusty editor. It lenge! an Orkney Childhood" is writ- was good that Gavin Rendall ten by Margaret Aitken (nee was able to join us at the com- Nan Scott Donald) whom I knew at mittee meeting in August. school. She writes very well and her sense of humour, The excursion to Stronsay in From the Editor which I recall, continually June was a huge success. shines through. The Stronsay members and In August I took two of my their families went out of their grandsons, Jamie (12) and She remembers, in detail, all way to see that we all had a Andrew Rendall (10) to Ork- her relatives and the people good day. It was interesting ney for the first time and we she knew who lived near her to visit Papa Stronsay when it had a wonderful holiday. They home at the "Munt" She re- was about to undergo a major thought it the best holiday members the people she met change in its history. Perhaps they had ever had. I have to when on excursions on the next year the society could confess that I was so busy mainland and on holiday in have a Papa Stronsay night. with my grandsons that I did the North Isles. It is interest- practically no genealogy re- ing too how she adds lots of There will be no meeting in search. However I did attend Orkney's ancient history in a September but on October the committee meeting of the very readable form. 11th 2001 Tom Muir OFHS in their new offices in We could do with a copy in the will speak on George Mar- the Strynd. I was very im- 0 F H S office! wick, Yesnaby's storyteller, in pressed with the work of the the St. Magnus Centre, Kirk- committee and the facilities Just recently we received a wall. In November the annual they have built up. They have package of Orkney books and dinner is to be in the Royal had a very busy time this maps from Allan and Dorot- Hotel Kirkwall. summer helping visitors with hea McKenzie, Niagara Fails, their research. Canada. This was very kind Some speakers are already of them and we want to thank booked for next year. There Readers of this issue will ob- them. We appreciate ail the will be a members night in serve the increased number books, pamphlets, and papers January. Phil Astley who is of articles and correspon- that we have received in the working in the Hudson's Bay dence. Keep it up. Editors are past. Company Archives at the mo- never satisfied and my plea ment may be with us in this time is for photographs, if One of the highlights of the March. James Irvine will possible, to create interest. summer for me is the "Sale of speak on "Contemporary Pages of text tend to be bor- Orkney Books" held in the Sources in the National and ing. Orkney Auction Mart every Orkney Archives for local and July. I attend, when I can, family history" in April. Also Two members, in this issue, hoping to pick up a bargain for Cameron Taylor has offered have made suggestions for our office or for myself. The to speak on "Genealogy Tour- articles in SFN. If you haven't sale is regularly supported by ism" at some point put pen to paper or attacked interesting and interested your keyboard why not have a people. Members who live My last word to you on this go for the December issue of outwith Orkney and are book occasion would be to please SFN. collectors should try to be at think of sending some items this annual event or at least for our journal. The last SFN get a catalogue. Bargains are had lots of interesting corre- Issue 19 September 2001 Sib Folk News 2 Flaws An Unusual Orcadian Name by Bob Flaws laws is not a common surname, at least not that's where we needed to look. Unfortunately, we in the U.S. When I was growing up, my had nonrefundable plane tickets back to the U.S., Ffather and I had a sort of game we played. so a trip to S. Ronaldsay was not possible that visit. Whenever we visited a new town or city, we would However, I did remember what Margaret had told look in the phone directory to see if any Flawses me. were listed They never were (until I visited Auck- land, NZ 8-10 years ago). Not only is my last name A few years later, I was poking about in my relatively rare, its English meaning caused no end mother's attic among my father's belongings, of teasing and embarrassment when I was a child. looking for genealogical clues. In an old trunk, I However, I always knew my surname was not found my grandfather's obituary and his father's English but derived from Norse. My father had told before him, which said they had both emigrated me about our family's Orcadian heritage early on. from St. Margaret's Hope on S. Ronaldsay. Unfortunately, his father had lived far from us and Around this same time, I also discovered the gene- died when I was only five or six. So I never got to alogy records at our local Church of the Latter question my grandfather about his parents. When Days Saints (Mormons) as well as on-line geneal- my father was in his 60s or early 70s, he had tried ogy. Through these means, I was able to get back to track down his Orcadian forebears, but, by then, another generation to my great-great grandfather. I had grown up and moved away, and he never Then one day, my mother sent me a newspaper discussed this with me while he was alive. That clipping from the New York Times about a B & B meant that, for most of my life, I knew my family in St. Margaret's Hope. I wrote to the proprietors was from Orkney, but I had no idea from what asking them if they knew of anyone who might island, parish, town, or croft. help me with my Flaws genealogy. Fortunately, these good people put me in touch with Helen One of the perks of my profession (I'm a writer and Manson of Sellardyke who was able to get me back teacher) is that I get to travel in Europe at least once another couple of generations. Helen is a member a year. When my own son was young, we tried to of the Orkney Family History Society and a distant arrange these travels in the summer when my son cousin. I've also received help from other distant was on vacation so that our whole family could go. cousins over the Internet, such as Lisa Conrad and Seven or eight years ago, I asked my son Ian (who Pam Thompson, both OFHS members. Below is was 11 or 12 at the time) where he'd like to visit what I've been able to learn about my Flaws line to when we were in Europe that summer. To my date. surprise, he replied Orkney. After my wife's and my initial surprise, we said, "Why not?" The name Flaws originated in the 15th century when Orcadians adopted the Scottish practice of When we got to Kirkwall, the proprietor of the B & surnames as opposed to the older Norse patronym- B in which we were staying learned we were inter- ics. Like many Orcadians at that time, the family ested in meeting any Orcadian Flawses, so he which came to be known as Flaws adopted the called up Magnus Flaws, a friend of his who lived name of the farm they lived on Flaws in Norse or on Wyre. Magnus was the captain of the ferry that Norn seems to refer to a piece of arable land at the ran from Mainland to Rousay to Wyre and Egilsay.