Scotland 2017

My cousin, Ken Nicholson, put me in touch with cousins who live in South Dell in Ness on the Isle of Lewis.  At the time of our visit they were house sitting for their daughter in Inverness so they met us in the cafe at the Culloden Visitors Centre on 4/19/17.  We thoroughly enjoyed our almost two hours with Margaret and Donald Gillies.  They are actually related to Ken on his Nicholson side rather than directly to me.  Our grandmothers were sisters and they both married Nicholson cousins.  The Gillies gave us the name and phone number for Anne MacSween(sp?) at the Ness Historical Society.  They also told us about a delightful shop that their niece had where we had another nice visit but will talk more about that later.  Donald also gave us directions to their house/croft so we could at least drive by.  Donald also told us that my great great great grandfather had lived on Croft #26 in Tolsta! When I called the Ness Historical Society on...

We arrived at Culloden a little before 1PM and of course did not know what our cousins looked like :)  They had suggested we leave our names at the visitor's desk which we did.  We purchased our tickets to tour the museum and grounds and then went to the cafe to get something for lunch.  They found us there and we had a delightful time sharing family stories and learning about Ness, the area on the Isle of Lewis where they live.  They gave us the name and phone number of a person to call from the Ness Historical Society who might be able to help us with the geneaology of the Nicholsons and MacIvers on the Island.  They also had done some research and were able to tell us that my great-great-great grandfather, John Nicholson, had lived on Croft #26 in Tolsta on the Isle of Lewis! Margaret had sent me some information prior to our trip so we told them that we had read some of the books that were in the blog she had sent us.  She also told us about her niece...

Today was one of our longer driving days.  We were going to meet our cousins, Donald and Margaret Gillies, for the first time at the cafe at Culloden at 1PM. Along the way, we stopped in Newtonmore to visit the Highland Folks Museum.  There were two reasons for this stop:  First, as Outlander fans we wanted to see the village that was used when Dougal collects the rent in Outlander.  Second, we wanted to see these replicas of 18th century turf roofed Highland crofts as they were similar to the crofts my ancestors would have lived in. Pictures from the drive to and then at the Museum: School House Curling & other games I have the same tools from my great grandfather Fun Tour?