The Family History Society of Buchan

Registered Scottish Charity SC035593

This article is from Isobel Buchan in Australia.

Where’s the Family Bible?

Or

Starting from Scratch

My husband, Jim Buchan (Chickies), and I left the Blue Toon in 1965 for Melbourne, Australia and one of the first places we went for a holiday was a small township in Gippsland named Buchan. Surprise, surprise! It is a well-known tourist spot because of its famous stalactite and stalagmite caves. We did the tour, at the end of which we asked the guide how the town got its name, fully expecting him to give us the name of someone Buchan. Imagine our shock to hear him say that it’s an old aboriginal name!!

That wasn’t really what got me interested in genealogy but coming to a new country, I did think, if our descendants wanted to know their roots it would be good for them to have written evidence rather than relying on old stories. It seemed logical to start with the Buchan side but, by the late eighties when I started, Jim’s dad, another James Buchan (Fittie’s, Williamy’s Jimby), had died and his mum had Altzeimer’s so, if there was ever a family bible containing the record of family births and deaths, its whereabouts were unknown.

However, we did know the Buchan grandparents were William and Mary Annie Buchan who lived at 15 High Street, Buchanhaven and on a trip back to the home town in ’89, I went to St. Nicholas House and obtained copies of their marriage and birth certificates. This was when we began getting into the unknown and, with the help of the Aberdeen Family History Shop and a cousin of Jim’s dad (William Nicol of Parkhill Road) who gave us a copy of his family tree with the Tee names, wewere back to James Buchan born 1835, son of Arthur Buchan and Jessie Strachan. It’s interesting to go back to the parish records and see who were the witnesses at the christenings as they weremainly other family members.

By this time, we were back in Melbourne and had learned of the censuses. What a goldmine of information they are:

1881 Buchanhaven

4 High Street

James Buchan (Fittie)  Head    Mar.     45     Fisherman     Aberdeen   Peterhead

Jessie     do.       Wife     do.      45                    do.       do.

Jessie     do.       Daur.   Unmar.     19     Fishwife         do.       do.

William    do. (Fittie’s Willmy) Son do.    14     Fisherman        do.       do.

Sarah     do.       Daur.             11     Scholar          do.        do.

Barbara   do.        do.              9       do.           do.        do.

James    do.       Son               4                    do.        do.

Isabella   do.      G. Daur.            1                    do.        do.

Catherine  do.        do.              1                    do.        do.

This was before the houses were renovated and extended as they are today and most of the homes were just a “but and ben” with an outside scullery. Jim remembers the house at 15 High Street. The doorways were less than 6 feet high, very narrow and the rooms were no more than 10x10 feet. Where did all these people sit or sleep?

Peterhead Parish Records LDS film no. 0102528, baptisms 1833-1854 showed:

25th July 1835 Arthur Buchan fisherman in Peterhead had a son baptised, named James, before Arthur Buchan and James Buchan.

This was the above James Buchan of the census and the witnesses were his paternal grandfather Arthur Gall Buchan and the father’s brother, James.

We know from the 1851 census that Arthur Buchan was born in Lonmay and his seaman’s ticket

48217 (LDS film no.1502069) gave his details as: Arthur Buchan, born St.Combs, aged 34, height 5 feet 8 inches, grey eyes, dark hair, swarthy complexion, marks none and went to sea in 1826, could write, resides Buchanhaven and never served in the Royal Navy or done Foreign Service.

We also have a record of some of the boats he sailed in from Crew List, Bt98/140 Aberdeen A-B; and from his brother John’s 1855 death certificate we have a copy of Arthur’s signature.

This is just a summary of some of the records we used to put a little more flesh on the bare bones of the basic information from the birth, marriage and death records. Over the years, the records have shown that Arthur Gall Buchan, b.1788 in Corskelly, married Barbara Buchan and had 9 children, the last baptised on 28.2.1835. When he died, some time before the 1841 census, Barbara was left with 6 children still at home, only one of whom was working, but to earn her own income, she became a fish dealer. Having seen a photo of a fish-seller with the heavy creel on her back, who would go into the country to sell fish, this is how I imagine Barbara supporting herself. The family all lived close and her elder sons were starting their own families when their father died. They were all fishermen and it’s not hard to speculate that the fish the men caught were sold by their mother, while her youngest children were looked after by the sons’ wives. I’m describing a close-knit family. The fisher-folk have always been self-sufficient and this is why they thrived, with the women baiting the lines and knitting the heavy Guernseys and the long drawers; and later, when fishing methods changed, mending the nets. They had to be as highly skilled as their menfolk and this is why fishermen married within the fishing community. However, after records showing that for almost three hundred years the Buchan men usually married Buchan, Bruce or Strachan women, my father- in-law married someone who wasn’t fisher, giving us more variety in our family tree.

I was very lucky to have my son, Wade, who was studying at that time and had long holidays, do most of this family research as this was long before the internet and so many records on- line so we had to order the LDS films and wait for weeks before we were able to get further back in our hunt.

Books written by local authors have also provided a lot of background information, especially Old Peterhead by Robert Neish, Fishing Off The Knuckle by David W. Summers, One Foot In The Sea by Robert Smith and Peterheid’s ain Peter Buchan’s books.

The moral of this article is to show that even without the proverbial family bible we are able to glean a lot of information about our ancestors with persistence and patience. (Research by Wade Buchan, Isobel Buchan and the late Bill Nicol.)

Isobel included an old photograph (given to her by Bill Nicol) of the above- mentioned Fittie’s Willmy and other fishermen, taken in front of “ooh Emmy Moll’s hoosie, in front of the wooden seat”. She isn’t sure who most of them are as Bill wrote down the ir by-names but some other members might be related. As far as she knows, the photograph would have been taken some time in the 1940s and before 1947 when Fittie’s Willmy died.

From left to right on photo:

Pellie (Boddam Isie’s Jim), Fittie ’s Willmy, Charlie Baird, Boggies (Donald Hosie’s father) Dickson Commery Bruce, Doo’s Aikie’s wife’s sister, Mey’s Bob Dals Foreman, Doddieky Big Jim Strachan, Jennie Russ? Jeems (Buchan Salesman), Jake Lyon (joiner with Dickie), Soverin, Dad’s Strachan, Unknown boy and dog.

We have tried to reproduce Isobel’s photo as it was received but the poor unknown boy and his dog seem to have disappeared! Sincere apologies for this unfortunate accident, Isobel!

Copyright (c) 2008 Family History Society of Buchan

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