Keith, Are you in touch with Pat Banks of Wanneroo? Her husband (David ?) is a descendent of the Banks of Smiddybanks. Cheers David, Perth, WA ----- Original Message ----- From: Keith Dash <dashjk@ozemail.com.au> To: <ORKNEY-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 1999 1:36 PM Subject: [ORKNEY] Braehead, St Margarets Hope > >Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 07:44:30 -0700 > I'm not sure to whom this message was directed: > > >From: "Robert Blake Allan" <rballan@home.com> > >To: ORKNEY-L@rootsweb.com > >Message-ID: > <001d01befebf$a7c58160$6b404218@CS910969-A.gvmt1.bc.wave.home.com> > >Subject: Re: [ORKNEY] Braehead?? > >Content-Type: text/plain; > > charset="iso-8859-1" > >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > > >What was your great gf's name? B Allan > > If the question was directed to me (Blake and I discovered a year or two > ago that we are distant cousins), my great-grandfather was James BANKS(2), > 2nd of 8 children of James BANKS(1) and Eliza Gray ALLAN. He was born at > "Smiddybanks", St Margarets Hope (the farmhouse on the western shore of the > bay of St Margarets Hope, adjoining and below "The Braehead")in 1837. The > BANKS family still lives there. James(2) went to sea as an apprentice > midshipman when he was 14 and progressed to became senior captain and > commodore of the AUSN Company based in Sydney, Australia. He died in > Sydney in 1905 aged 67. From the various family history notes I have seen, > it seems that James(2)'s youngest sister, Ann Carmichael (Annie) BANKS > b.1849, inherited "The Braehead" from her maternal grandmother, Mary ALLAN > nee KENNEDY - "The Braehead" had originally been a KENNEDY property, it > became associated with the ALLAN family when Mary KENNEDY, the eldest child > of James KENNEDY and Isabella GRAY, married James ALLAN in 1805, it passed > to the BANKS family through Ann Carmichael BANKS, and then to the SINCLAIR > family by her marriage to W A SINCLAIR in 1890. From surviving letters of > the 1930s, it is clear there was an affectionate link between "The > Braehead" residents and their cousins in Australia. > __________________________ > Keith Dash > Sydney, Australia > >