>From the latest issue of the Ileach Ileach 43/01 31 October 2015 Islay visit Mel and Carol Winthrope, Canadian tourists visiting Islay, write: Both my husband and I have been researching our family trees. My mother is a ‘Graham’ and there was a ‘Clan Graham’ tour from North America offered this summer. We decided that we would make the trip and try to find my heritage in Scotland, specifically on the island of Islay. My family has a very old Bible dated 1819 in which all my GGG and GG family members are recorded, with their names and birth dates. My GGG Grandfather was Alexander Graham and my GGG Grandmother was Mary Douglass. We knew they were from the island of Islay because that was recorded in the Bible. We have a baptism record showing Mary Douglass being baptised at the Round Church in Bowmore. The record lists her residence as Neriby. We also discovered from an archivist in Lochgilphead that Alexander Graham’s family was from Ballivicar. She was born in 1790 and her future husband, Alexander was born in 1783/4. We gingerly knocked on the door of the residents at Neriby Farm and to our amazement we were asked in for tea. What a friendly welcome we received from Liz and Bob Cunninghame. I got to feel the area where my GGG Grandmother lived. There was no record from the Archivist that the Douglass family lived there, but he did mention that sub-tenants or common labourers would not be recorded. However, Alexander Graham was recorded because he was a tenant and paid rent to Daniel Campbell, the then owner of the island. We found a record of his family paying rent on a farm at Balivicar in 1733 and 1741. We had picked up a little booklet from the Bowmore Church, “The Campbell Heritage” Kilarrow Series (6). Daniel Campbell appears to be in our ancestors’ lives on my mother’s side and very possibly on my father’s side as well. This was definitely not in a good way for my father’s family. My father was a ‘Mickey’ and while working on research this year I discovered his Great Grandfather was a run-away slave from Virginia, USA. He lost his wife in the process, but escaped with one small son, Reuben, who was aged about 3-4 years, to Canada in around 1855-1858. It was one of the most horrible practises the world has known, the trading of other human beings for financial gain, and an accepted mal-treatment of unbelievable magnitude was the basis of Daniel Campbell‘s fortune. Fortunately for me, William Mickey (my GG Grandfather) made it with his son to freedom in Canada through the Underground Railroad. What I discovered in the “Campbell Heritage” booklet is that Daniel Campbell became a New England ship-owner and trader. He returned to Scotland and became a Glasgow ‘Tobacco Lord’, trading as far as Virginia, Sweden and Africa. His trade included iron ore, tobacco and slaves,”, so Campbell made his fortune trading families like mine into a life of pain and misery. Another quote from the Campbell booklet in “Daniel Campbell’s Day Book”, in the handwriting of Fferquhard Campbell the Notary Public, is an entry of the Latin inscription which appears on a tablet in the face of the church tower translated, “For the pious study of truth and honour, this church is dedicated to the supreme deity by Daniel Campbell, Lord of the Island, who built it at his own cost.” This is referring to the Round Church in Bowmore, where we picked up this pamphlet. So much for truth and honour as he condemned thousands of Africans to slavery, my family possibly on one of his ships. I discovered Elizabeth (Betty) Douglas who had married Robert Hamilton in 1811. They had five children before Robert met an untimely death in 1820. Being an Excise officer on Islay, I suspect he may have been murdered. Does anyone’s family memories stretch that far back? Elizabeth is probably a sister to Mary Douglas, being born only two years apart. Interesting enough, my Graham family settled in eastern Ontario, Canada. The Mickey side of my family settled in the southwestern side of Ontario, Canada after escaping slavery in the US in the 1850’s. The Grahams and the Mickeys eventually moved to Saskatchewan, Canada where my mother met and fell in love with my dad. My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed your wee island, the friendly people and the beautiful sunsets. It was a trip of lifetime.