I remember it fine. It was lambing time in Sutherland, and we were in Rogart just started our week or
so help Frances’ dad with the annual lambing. We flicked through the paper and
came across an advert looking for connections to a Corbett from Kinlochbervie
area. I chipped up this person might be related to Anne, Frances’ mother. The
conversation was weak and limited. Later I suggested to Frances we take a trip
to the registrar office in Brora one afternoon when off the lambing and we could do a little
detective work.
So, sure enough one afternoon, we after having done the
rounds drove up to Brora. We met Jackie Maclennan Scotland’s longest serving
registrar (so he should know something).
Photograph by Allan Lannon, Caithness
It was a small office with a 1920s feel.
The books and registers were tidy. The only thing that gave away the real time
from the office equipment and the ledgers was the bundle of computer paper, cut
offs Jackie produced and started writing down names. We were looking for
Christina Bessie Corbett -spinster who had died with an estate, a small estate
which the Edinburgh lawyers were trying to wind up.
They were having
difficulties finding the right people as the next of kin and there was no Will
had been found.
These sheets of “off” colour
computer paper were “tractor” holed on both sides with coloured line blocks,
but best of all, they were wide for
writing manually a trees of sort.
Jackie got off to a start with the oldest person we could
find in the story and started to pan out the relationships from there coming
down. At the same time, he was writing names and details of similar named
people on a list.
It was spring 1993 a warm spring and a cosy office to watch
the master at work. Not only was he efficient in his approach but he knew some
of the names from other researches and although slow to hand within hours we
had lists of computer papers with names and rough family trees.
He bundled up the papers handed them over and implied all
that was needed was there just sort it out.
It wasn’t until we got home from the lambing that we were able to see that Frances’ mum was related to
the Christina B Corbett but also twice as she was a second cousin on one side
and a third cousin on the other side of her grandparents. We wrote to the Edinburgh lawyers with a
rough tree and waited a reply.
Correspondence went back and forward we
expanded the tree and discovered in consultation that there were around a dozen
folks who would share in the estate. It must have been a good job as they asked
for a fee note. But we were happy just doing the work and maybe Gran would get
a few bobs as well. The lawyers of the estate were going back up the family tree and
backdown another branch to find beneficiaries. Once done as I say around 12
folks got a wee cheque.
The estate was wound up and a few folks got a surprise in
the post.
We have not done much more research on the Corbett side of
the family with the exception of Frances’
gran, which I am coming too now.
She was called Christina Keith Corbett nee Fullerton, daughter of same name
Christina Fullerton.
The family had said there was a Stonehaven connection but
her life in school years and early teens was in Kinlochbervie. I found her at
birth and her mother in Dunnottar living on a Farm. The Fullertons having
farmed there for some time and originally from further north of Aberdeen.
Hector
Fullerton I am sure was a character with three wives -not at the same time! and
several children. When we catch the Census, we discover baby Christina to the age of three is in Stonehaven living
with other ladies in what might be a
mini children’s home. I assume this was to free Christina senior to work as a
milk maid on the farm. She was still in the farm on future census.
Frances’ cousin last
year did some research on site and came up with some good information.
He has a great speculation about the father of Christina
which holds water so to speak. Meanwhile
in our research we wanted to know what happened to Christina from age 3 to age
around 18. Family said she was adopted, and we looked at records to see if we
could find Christina Keith Fullerton. UK
adoption those years ago was less formal and little paperwork. No, she
disappears. Both in Stonehaven and Dunnottar and in the North West of
Sutherland.
Last spring Frances’ cousin found her in
the Kinlochbervie area with the adopted parents and using the family name of
Corbett. The most recent find by me in
the last few months was finding her marriage to James Corbett in Edinburgh in
1916. James was in the Navy and a nephew of the family that adopted Christina.
Still some missing aspects but finding of family and lost
memories or information is always rewarding. Dealing with the snapshots of the
ups and downs of life too can make you wonder how people coped. All these
people mentioned are in Frances and my family tree.
