Family History Trip to Scotland

Rick and I left Monday afternoon for our much anticipated British Isles trip.  

We have been working on some of his family history, the Drysdale line, in trying to find George Trusdale/Drysdale and his wife,  Elizabeth Paxton.  I have been spending a lot of time the last few weeks try8ing to find out more about these two family members and their children.  On family search I was able to find the census records connected to them and get to know who all was in the family.   There were a few questions that I couldn't figure out so with the help of Dan Poffenberger, at the family history library, we were able to establish a few facts.  We found out that William, George and Elizabeth's youngest son had died as an infant and was buried in the Church Parish in Kilwinning, Scotland.  We also knew that the family lived much of their time while in Scotland (twenty plus years) in a small village named Lugar.  We knew we wanted to visit that place.

That brings us to Scotland where we arrived Tuesday afternoon.  Our original flight out of SLC was delayed which bumped us on another later flight across the Atlantic that evening into Heathrow.  When we arrived in Dallas before the transatlantic flight we found out that they did not have us sitting together and were not going to move us because the flight was very full. (A nine hour flight!)  After a little prodding, somehow a nice desk attendant was able to get us together.   We also found out at that point that we somehow had been scheduled on different flights flying out of London to Scotland on the last leg of our trip.  We were able to find someone to fix that problem for us but didn't know about Rick's luggage was going to make it onto the same flight since it had been tagged all the way through in SLC.  We were told to ask someone at British Airways once we arrived in London.  Long story short, we thought we had it all arranged but once arriving in Scotland...no bag.  We thought maybe it would arrive on the original flight one hour later so after traveling for nearly twenty four hours, we waited another hour to see if his bag would arrive on the original flight....nope.  The baggage attendant tried to help with no success.  He told us to call British Airways...no help there.  Anyway, after many prayers and a night and a day with no bag for Rick we finally were able to get word that it was there waiting for us at the Glasgow Airport.  We were heading back that direction on our second day in Scotland so it worked out ok.  Rick was very relieved to find that his bag had been recovered.  He was wondering what he was going to do the next three weeks with just the clothes on his back.  Thankfully all has worked out well.

That brings me to our arrival into Glasgow.  With all of the issues just to get here we then found out there was an issue with our rental car.  It was the last car available and it was in the shop for a flat tire.  We then had to wait extra time for that to get finished up.  All of this was a bad start to our trip but thankfully I cans say that it got better form there.

We got our car and drove an hour south into a little town called Kilmaur just outside of Kilmarnock.  We had booked a b&b called the Beeches.  It was a cute little home with THE absolute nicest proprietors.  Margarite was the name of the home's owner and she was so helpful.  While we were getting settled she made a reservation at the local pub, The Weston, down the street.  It came highly recommended from her.  We drove right down for dinner and thoroughly  enjoyed ourselves.  We still didn't know about Rick's bag so that was a worry in the back of our minds but it sure felt good to eat a good meal in a quiet place.

While I ordered the grilled chicken...

                      Rick ordered the steak pie with mash and veggies, which he loved!

We were both exhausted from the long trip and had a good nights rest.

Marguerite made us a great Scottish breakfast including eggs, potato pancakes, bacon, sausage, and toast with jam.  Rick also had the black pudding and the traditional Scottish haggis.  It was such a filling meal we did not need to eat until dinner that night.

Here is our car that Rick has been loving to drive.  A stick shift Peugot.

         Here I am with Marguerite, her husband Phil and their grandson in front of their home.

And this was it.... our way on to the Lugar Village in the parish of Auchinleck, where Rick's great great grandparents lived with their family.  WE found the Parish church right off but could not get inside.  We walked around and took pictures. wondered what to do from there.  I said, "let's knock on a door in one of these row houses

Here is some picture of the Parish Church.  It is in a beautiful area right next to the mountain where the coal miners did their work.

We wanted to get inside the church and wondered how to do that.  I said to Rick, "Let's knock on one of the row houses that are right here next to the church. Maybe we can find someone who knows something."

We did find someone!  We got to meet Mary Todd, a lady who has lived right there next to the church for forty one years!  She told us a little about the area and the coal mining and then directed us to Marian Wiley who would have a key to the church.  This is Mary's home.  It is in a row of houses that have been there for at least one hundred and fifty years.  They are connected to the old manse. (a few pictures down)

 

This building is the old wash house that was used by the miners families that lived in this particular row house.  We did not have any idea which row house the Drysdale's lived in but would have been similar to these.

We drove to Marian's  house and she was just leaving but she said she would meet us at the church to let us in.  What a gem both of these ladies were to take time with us and what a tender very it was to find them!  Marian showed us around the church a little bit and then left us the key to explore as long as we liked and then lock up when we left.

The church has recently been remodeled but it has the original pews and balcony.  It was really special being there in the place where Rick's family went to church!

This is the "old manse" that is connected to the church.  It is where the pastor of the congregation would have lived.  It is now someone's home.

After looking around awhile we locked up and drove a little bit more around the village.

This next picture is the place where the villagers would have come to gather water.  This is the original well that was used.

Right next to the well was a beautiful rock bridge going over the "Lugar Waters" as the old maps call it.

     This is the same green where the miners wold have played football and other sports.

Next it was on to Kilwinning, the place where The Drysdale's lived and their oldest son William was buried.  Kilwinning.

We could tell from the death record that William was buried in the parish church.  We did our best, with the help of Dan, to decide which church that would have been.  It seems that church would have been this parish church set up next to the old monastery abby.  Unfortunately, vandals have come into the graveyard for many years and desecrated the graves and stones so there are very few left.  We looked at all of the remains graves and didn't see anything of interest.  I'm not sure that George and elizabeth would have even had money to purchase a headstone for their little baby.  Even though we did not find his grave we felt confident that he was buried here in this graveyard.

This is the Kilwinning parish church.

These pictures are part of the old abbey.

A beautiful tree in full bloom.

We drove just outside of Kilwinning over to where the old 1850 maps shows where Fergushill was.  The Trusdales, as they were called when they lived here, lived in the village of Fergushill according to the 1861 census.  While the village of Fergushill is no longer, there is a Fergushill Road right where it shows the little village used to be.

We enjoyed this part of our trip that took us to the area where Rick's ancestors used to be.  It was a special experience and we feel very blessed to have been able to visit.