Oz

[tel]

There was a young Scottish lad named Angus who decided to try life in Australia. He found an apartment in a small block and settled in.

After a week or two, his mother called from Aberdeen to see how her son was doing in his new life.

"I'm fine," Angus said, "But there are some really strange people living here in Australia. One woman cries all day long, another lies on her floor moaning, and there is a guy next door to me who bangs his head on the wall all the time."

"Well, ma wee laddie," says his mother, "I suggest you don't associate with people like that."

"Oh," says Angus, "I don't, Ma'am, I don't. No, I just stay inside ma apartment all day and night, playing ma bagpipes."

[Nick]

I hate Scotland

[tel]

Any particular reason? Bad experience?

[Nick]

Yes. I went there once!

[tel]

Highlands or lowlands?

[Snoopy]

I went there once too ~ very like Wales but colder I thought. Natives just as odd 

[Barman]

I went there loads-a-times...

[Nick]

Highlands or lowlands?

Cape Wrath

[tel]

Never been there. Great grand father was born at Leith though. No idea how his father ended up in the Black Watch when he was born in Surrey I'll never know.

[Snoopy]

Never been there. Great grand father was born at Leith though. No idea how his father ended up in the Black Watch when he was born in Surrey I'll never know.

  Confessions time eh? My Great Graddad came from a farming family from Inverness. Aged 16, he ran away to sea and ended up in Sussex, married a local girl and stayed down south til he ran off again, this time to the US, in 1887. Never came back. 

[Nick]

I am reminded of my BIL who is a very serious academic and somewhat naive. Some years ago he was writing a biography and was baffled that his subject, a clergyman, had gone to livein America, taking his housekeeper, to whom he subsequently left his entire estate. He couldn't fathom why she got all the dosh. When we pointed out that she was obviously his mistress he was shocked, arguing, "But he was a priest".

He eventually came around to the idea and was very grateful for the tip!!

[Snoopy]

I have had trouble convincing "family" that Great Greandfather saw his running off to the US as a divorce.
Grt Grandmother's subsequent remarriage, when she claimed to be a widow, had several of the family searching for a "declaration of presumed death" in a court.
Again much disbelief when I explained that she had simply lied ~ until that is I showed them the marriage certificate that showed she had also knocked 11 years off her age and married a much younger man.
Some people simply cannot work out that what we would do these days did not apply in the 188os.

[Nick]

[Snoopy]

[tel]

I have had trouble convincing "family" that Great Greandfather saw his running off to the US as a divorce.
Grt Grandmother's subsequent remarriage, when she claimed to be a widow, had several of the family searching for a "declaration of presumed death" in a court.
Again much disbelief when I explained that she had simply lied ~ until that is I showed them the marriage certificate that showed she had also knocked 11 years off her age and married a much younger man.
Some people simply cannot work out that what we would do these days did not apply in the 188os.

I've done a fair bit of researching the family history, and it's sometimes difficult to relate to the totally different attitude to things like marriage and bastardy etc. Going through the census data, I've got one ancestor who married for a second time (first one died) and second wife had a son although she was a spinster - ten years later the boy now has the fathers surname, no legal stuff required.
Also one ancestor loses 1 or 2 years at each census, so his wife does as well.

Another thing is how many people could not write - lots of "x"'s on marriage certs etc.