Hiya Alan, I have been swamped with the distraction of work, and so my genealogy is suffering (and correspondance, sigh...) However one mention in your message does look a bit familiar and so before I forget here ya go; On Sun, 16 Dec 2001, Alan Cairnie wrote: <snip bulk of message> > family of fifteen. From the gravestone and surrounding markers there > are references to: > <snip Hall/Murray stone> > o Roderick CORBETT (1886-1974) and his wife Isabella H. HALL. > > Any connections? Corbett familys in Easter Ross were mainly from around the village of Inver which straddles the Tain/Tarbat Parish boundary, the ruins of a castle a bit east of there is known as "Castle Corbet". A gt-gt-grandfather of mine, Donald McDonald, lived at Reiff in the Coigach district of Lochbroom Parish in Wester Ross. He was first married there in 1832 to Margaret Graham, and the eldest child, Catherine, was born about 1834. Catherine married in 1854 to William Corbett at Arboll in Tarbat Parish. This family vanishes before the 1871 census, though Cela Beale has found a family in New Zealand records that might be them. Catharine and William had at least four children at Arboll; 1) "Catherine or Margaret" b.14 April 1856 2) Donald b.29 October 1857 3) George b.23 April 1860 4) Christy b.4 October 1864 Your Roderick born 1886 might possibly be a son of Donald or George. Reasons for my guess is that "Roderick" was much more common as a west coast name, and Donald and George Corbett had many relatives at Coigach. Also, early in 1887 a fishing boat setting off from Reiff was swamped, drowning George and Hugh McDonald, their brother in law, Roderick Ross, and Roderick's cousin, also named Roderick Ross. Following the tragedy at least six children of relatives were named for the fishers; one born in 1886 as Margaret Ross was renamed Roderickina ("Rodina"). My webpage at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~coigach includes a file about the four fishers, unfortunately my focus on the webpage is Coigach, so there is not there much more info on the Corbetts... Interested to hear if you track down Roderick Corbett's parents, to confirm or deny that he is part of my tree as well. All the best from the brink of Niagara, Donald. > Alan Cairnie > Perth, Ontario