National Archives of Scotland; RENNY

Renny family miscellany, family papers, 1797-1879 [MS 104];

Renny family, Arbroath: family papers, 1797-1879 [MS 104];

acauston...

....

Indeed, I am trawling through search results (46 pages!) for the
McGowan surname, and have already retrieved at least ten definite
hits, and several other possibilities.

Lesley Robertson...

Nothing quite like the triumph of spreading an addiction!
As long as it doesn't increase the competition for seats when I head up
there, of course.....

viv.dunstan...

Competition may be tighter anyway: with changes for the new planned
family history campus the Legal Search Room is to move into the wing
where the computers currently are; some computers and microfilm readers
etc. are to move into the Historical Search Room; so there will be less
seats for "normal" researchers in the Historical Search Room. It can
already be very busy in there at times and best if you can arrive before
10am to grab a seat. That may become more essential in future.

Lesley Robertson...

Thanks for the warning. I don't think I've ever seen more than about 10
people in there. I must admit that the current computer room has always

viv.dunstan...

Ah. I'm used to being there when there are twice as many as that and
virtually no seats left.

seems under-used...

viv.dunstan...

Agreed, and I doubt many more people will use the computers in the main
room either. But housing the computers will remove more research seats.

Lesley Robertson...

I was amazed at how much stuff they now have on their intranet - I spent the
best part o one day in there, just going through church records, for
example.
Lesley Robertson

Lesley Robertson

These are in all probability the same papers that have been 'double
indexed'. Because of the Arbroath location they will refer to my
mother's family. Is there any way I can establish what they might
contain, without easing myself out of my East Anglian fastness, or the
expenditure of a reckonable amount of money? ( -Yes, I have a second
Scottish strain in me, to-gether they make me watch the bawbees).

Lesley Robertson...

Might be double, might be 2 folders in the same box.

Your big (but unlikely) hope is that they've gotten around to scanning the
material already, but (comparing it to stuff I've been searching) I doubt
it. They've started with the mass-interest material such as the church
records. If you're really averse to heading north, you need to get someone
to have a look for you (and no, I won't be going back before next summer),
or you could ask them if the material can be copied...

andrew...

I will cross fingers and get in touch with them. It's not that I am
averse to a trip north, it's just that I find it increasingly difficult
to manouvre. On my lat trip I visited Montrose and saw the house in the
main square of "Pekoe" Renny, who made his pile by smuggling in tea from
Hamburg.

On my next trip I had meant to visit a house in Pitlochery where a ship
owning architect Renny had lived and where he was visited by the most
revered Japanese poet of the time. I gather the house is now a hotel and
does very well out of a constant stream of Japanese guests! I believe I
saw it when visiting the theatre there a few years ago, (free, gratis
and for nothing).

As I gather you spend most of your time when back in Scotland sitting
amidst red ants on tombstones in assorted parishes throughout Scotland I
was not thinking of asking you!

Oh dear, made me think of an Arbroath Smokie for Sunday breakfast in
place of a slice of toast.

Lesley Robertson...

See? It would be MUCH more fun to head up there.

andrew...

Last time I bought some kippers straight out of a smoke house at North
Berwick, they were plump and melted in one's mouth. I was with a Dundas
cousin who says when a girl she had kippers from the same place, as did
my father when a boy, a generation before; such was the Dundas devotion
to these particular kippers!, (and the town for summer holidays).

Yours Aye Andrew Sellon

Lesley Robertson

Yours Aye Andrew Sellon