This is my first post to the list. It is quite long and complicated. Apologies for that and any lapses of etiquette. By way of introduction. My name is Dario LESLIE and as my surname suggests I have Scottish ancestors. I was born in London and still live in southern England, but both my father and grandmother were LESLIEs brought up in Brora in Sutherland where the family home was. Unusually, the LESLIE surname was passed down through the maternal line in the case of my grandmother who reverted to her maiden name by deed poll when she was widowed at the age of twenty-three. I have recently begun tracing my family history and so was delighted to find the thread on the LESLIE family of Backies in the Feb 2001 mailing list as this clearly refers to my family. I thought I would post to share and seek additional information. Taking Benjamin LESLIE first. Benjamin LESLIE was my great great grandfather and was born in Golspie in 1832 the son of George LESLIE of Backies. He died in Rhidorroch in 1870 and is buried in the graveyard of St Andrew’s church Golspie along with other LESLIEs (of which more later). Our family oral tradition regarding Benjamin is interesting: it says that he was a factor at Rhidorroch where he died not of natural causes, but murder. Apparently he was shot by poachers. I was told this by my grandmother (his granddaughter) Bertha. Although Bertha would not have known Benjamin, she would have just known his wife Louisa who died when Bertha was seven. The story must have been passed down from Louisa as she lived to be 85, dying in 1921 in Brora (just a few miles from Golspie), and would have had plenty of time to tell her children and grandchildren about Benjamin. In May 2001 I travelled to Brora with my family to inter Bertha’s remains, and stayed for a week during which I tried to verify the oral history of the family. Much of it was accurate, but I was unable to confirm the murder tale. However, the Dingwall registrar considered Benjamin’s death record to be unusual as it was registered by the procurator fiscal, and his parent’s names are not recorded. The cause of death is given as apoplexy. These records and the information in Malcolm Bangor-Jones’ posts in February leave a little room in my mind to suspect that Benjamin’s death may have been unusual. I wonder if he may have been shot at and was either injured or just shocked enough to die subsequently. I have also wondered if there are any reasons why the murder might have been hushed up. I would welcome any comments and additional information. I would be interested to know if Malcolm Bangor-Jones has found any other information about Benjamin since his post in February, and would be grateful if he could tell me how I can get copies of the sources he cites in that post. I would also be grateful if Isabella McGregor can post any additional information on Benjamin’s children. My own line, which I know quite well, runs through his posthumous son Benjamin. Moving on to the other LESLIES of Backies. I was very interested in Sheryl Sharp’s family history – we are clearly very distant cousins both in terms of relationship and geography! My own research confirms much of Sherl’s history, but I have been unable to conclusively demonstrate that George LESLIE born 1754 was the same George LESLIE who married Christina MCPHERSON in 1796. My concern is that generation times seem to be about 20 years back then rather than the 40 plus years in this case. The records from Golspie for this period seem to be very patchy and don’t help much. Furthermore, I am having trouble tying in the records for this period with the stones in the local graveyard. In the graveyard of St Andrew’s Church Golspie, I found a cluster of LESLIE graves including a well preserved standing stone for Benjamin LESLIE of Rhiddoroch fame, and another for George LESLIE born 1797, who was the son of George LESLIE and Christina MCPHERSON. There is no stone which can obviously be attributed to George LESLIE and Christina MCPHERSON. However, there is a pair of older flat stones roughly ascribed to George LESLEY and Elen MACLEOD. I note that there is a record of a Helen MCLEOD being born in Golspie in 1756 and so I wonder whether she was the spouse of George born 1754, and that the paired flat stones are their graves. One of the flat stones has a rough date inscription which could be 1751 but is more accurately represented in type as / 7 5 ) but there is no indication of what the date refers to. As a point of interest there was an even older flat stone inscribed Gorg LESLY nearby. Maybe the marriage to Christina MCPHERSON was George LESLIE’s second marriage. Maybe he first married Helen MCLEOD who bore him no children. She died or they parted, and he then married Christina MCPHERSON in his later years. The other possibility, which would tidy up the generation times, is that there is an extra generation not recorded in the Golspie records. George LESLIE born 1754 could have had a son (named George) in the 1770s who married Christina in 1796. I have found no hard documentary evidence to support either possibility. The only incidental evidence I can find is that in Margaret Wilson Grant’s book “Golpsie’s Story” the list of Golspie parish men liable for military service in 1810 does not include George LESLIE. Eligibility for this list depends on being aged between 18 and 45 years. If George had been born in 1754 then he would indeed have been too old. If there were an additional generation in the 1770s then that George would have been eligible. I would be interested to know what Sheryl’s sources are, and whether anyone can help help to confirm this period of the LESLIE family. Aside from all that, my own research indicates that George LESLIE b. 30-4-1754 was the son of another George LESLIE of Golspie. No spouse is given for the elder George, but Golspie records show the birth of the following other children to George LESLIE (spouse unnamed) at this time: George b. 21-12-1740 Donald b. 15-5-1743 Florence b. 26-7-1745 John b. 24-7-1748 According to Margaret Wilson Grant’s book “Golpsie’s Story” the list of seat holders in Golspie Kirk in 1752 contains only one LESLIE: George LESLIE, tenant of Backies, so I suspect that all of the above children were siblings of George LESLIE born 1754. Well that’s about all I have for now. Any comments or further info would be very welcome. Dario Leslie Wiltshire, England _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com