Hi folks, As ever, wise counsel from Anne! I don't know any other member of this list, other than perhaps Graeme from Moray Council, with such a comprehensive knowledge of Moray. As Anne said, Moray and Sutherland were always separate counties. However the Sutherland family in its various branches started its life in Moray at Duffus and indeed the various parts of the Duffus family owned estates in both Moray and Sutherland. Kenneth, Lord Duffus was the only leading Sutherland who supported the Jacobites (1715) and was exiled for his troubles and the title wasn't restored for 2 generations but the lands in Moray and around Skelbo, just a couple of miles north of Dornoch in Sutherland remained in the family or its junior branches like the Dunbars through much of the 19th century, so the family could have been retainers of the Duffus family and hence links with both sides of the Moray Firth. An alternative which may be possible! Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal (who with his first cousin Lord Mount Stephen were the driving force behind the Canadian Pacific Railway) was a nephew of John Stuart, the great explorer in Canada after whom the river was called. The family was from Knockando and area but numerous members of the family (of which I am also part through my Smith great great grandmother) worked for the Hudson Bay Company of which Donald Alexander Smith, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal was the last Governor General. Linking on to some mails I saw the other day about WWI, it partly explains why so many Morayshire men, like brothers of my great grandfather (half-Smiths) fought in Canadian regiments during WWI. I know from the stories my grandfather told me as a small boy that the north-east of Canada seemed to have some form of magnetic attraction for the family (and a great deal of its money) but I have not checked to see if Charles is a member of that branch of the family, John Stuart being the brother of Lord Strathcona's mother, Barbara Stuart. Just an idea! Mark John M Sutherland-Fisher Director: Czech Match Ltd North Cadboll House, North Cadboll, Fearn by Tain, Ross-shire. IV20 1TN Tel and Fax: (0044)1862 871877 Mobile: 07765 272815 e-mail: info@czechmatch.co.uk website: www.czechmatch.co.uk "Bringing Two Worlds Together" -----Original Message----- From: Anne Burgess [mailto:anne.burgess@btinternet.com] Sent: 23 May 2005 10:13 To: MORAY-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [MORAY] Family of Charles Stuart > Need help finding parents of Charles Stuart, b. 1806 in "Sutherland > > Shire," according to his handwritten obit. Question: Did parts of > Morayshire ever belong to Sutherlandshire? No, absolutely not. But it is quite possible that Charles' father moved from Moray to Sutherland, or even that his uncle John moved from Sutherland to Moray (though in that case he isn't so likely to name Moray as his county of origin) or even that Charles' grandparents moved so that one son was born in Moray and another in Sutherland. > Charles left Scotland for Nova Scotia in 1816 at age of 10 to live > with father's brother, John Stuart, who was listed as being from > "parish of Plymouth, county of Moray." Someone has suggested > that Plymouth is most likely Speymouth. Sounds plausible. They would sound pretty similar to the ear of whoever was collecting the information for whatever document you found that in. In the late 18th and early 19th century Speymouth was the centre of a major shipbuilding industry. Timber from the forests around Rothiemurchus was floated down the River Spey to the mouth of the Spey at Kingston, where it was used to build wooden vessels. > Other family names are Mary, May, Alexander. Not very useful as they are all pretty common (May is usually short for Marjory) > Am I even asking the right questions? Yes. But whether the answer exists at all is another matter. What you neef to do is search the IGI at www.familysearch.org to see if you can find a John Stewart or Stuart born in the late 18th century in Speymouth with a brother born in Sutherland. A long job, but I don't see any short cut, I'm afraid. Even then, you could not be sure you have the right man. If you have dates of death you could try http://libindx.moray.gov.uk/mainmenu.asp just in case there was a death notice in one of the local papers in Moray. HTH Anne ==== MORAY Mailing List ==== " Reply All " ........Please, please, please, when replying to a posted message make sure that the reply is sent to the list and not just the sender of the message. This is done by clicking " Reply All " Thank you ;-) ============================== Search the US Census Collection. Over 140 million records added in the last 12 months. Largest online collection in the world. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13965/rd.ashx