Back in the 'Burgh and reflections

Wednesday

After a train and a train replacement bus I am back in Edinburgh, hoping to do some more good research tomorrow in the archives and register offices.

Have uploaded full photo set for Orkney trip and part for Inverness... still a lot more to add but access has been very limited and I think the rest might have to wait 'til I get back which will be in two short weeks...

A lot of success in Inverness with the research - have copies of baptism registers from Urquart in the 1750s, so really a great effort I think, these are the earliest records I have so far and really so much more than you would ever hope for.

It was a bit of a busy day yesterday from going to the archives room in the Inverness library to view the ORIGINAL papers from 1790 when my highland ancestor was transported around Scotland and then sent to Australia. It is one thing to know vague details of these things but to hold in your bare (they have a less strict approach to these things in Inverness) hands the papers from 1790 that condemned my ancestor to death had he returned to Scotland without due cause is an experience I will never forget.

And then the same day to travel alone by limited transport options to the town where his family lived in the 1750s was something else altogether.

Really glad I did it all... who knows how much more there is to find out... tomorrow might give me the answers.... whatever my trip to Ireland was or wasn't. for sure Scotland is making up for it. I leave on Friday for York, then Norwich for more family connections... preparing to visit Norwich Castle where my female first fleeter was imprisoned prior to transportation.

I wonder if I have been too ambitious but then again this whole adventure has been such a one-off for so many reasons and so much more than I could ever have expected. a growing number of strangers I meet tell me that I am brave to travel around like this alone. There have been times when I have felt alone, wondered what the heck I was doing, wondered if I made a few risky choices and if it is such a good idea to be alone in the middle of various countrysides... but in the end I know that the people who were in these places before me and because of whom I have returned to these places had lives of unimaginable hardship. When they came to Australia their lives changed forever and because of their courage and strength I am able to do all of this now.

I hope that the doubters now know that I could do this trip. I could manage it and live to see another day and now as my return home approaches it is with immense gratitude and pride that I can come home to a place that gave so much opportunity to my emmigrant ancestors a long time ago and very recently.