Hello I am new to this list and hope that you will forgive a posting possibly at the margin of list interest, (except that I believe that "The Black Watch" is almost synonymous with "Perthshire"!) I am trying to establish if my grandfather John LOUGHRIDGE did indeed (as family tradition has it) served in the Black Watch in the 1880's. This is supported to some extent by the information in the 1911 Census for Belfast that John's son William was born in 1886/7 in Malta. I have established from a regimental history that the 1st Battalion did serve in Malta from 1886 to 1889. I can find no record of John in the Scottish BMD records, so I rather think he may have been an Ulsterman. Does anyone know how likely it would have been for a non-Scot to have enlisted in the Black Watch which I believe traditionally recruited from Perthshire? Secondly, I would be grateful if someone could point me to a source of information on the Regiment in the 1880s. I have tried several times on Google to track down such a source but I always seem to end up with sites that want me to have a day out to the Black Watch Museum, book accommodation nearby or else has links which don't seem to access anything. Is there by chance any laddie (or even lady!) out there who knows about these things? ;-) Brian Loughridge in a gleek Coventry night.