FRIDAY MAGAZINE

Thousands of Australians spend ours and hours searching genealogy records to trace their family tree – chances are, there’s a good wee dram of Scottish blood flowing in the veins of your heritage…if so, a trip to the bonny land of castles, quaint country roads, and windswept mountains overlooking famous lochs could be just theancestral hit you’re looking for.

Story by LEE MYLNE

Black-faced Scottish sheep stare and scatter as I stride across the fields towards them. More graze among the stone ruins of my great-great-great-grandparents’ crofter’s hut.

Like hundreds before me, I’ve travelled across the world to track down my ancestors. It’s a fascinating experience and a growing part of Scotland’s tourism industry.

Winding country roads – not always well signposted and many just one lane with “passing places” - have taken me from Inverness to the wild western coast of the Highlands. It’s been a blast – and that includes my horn from time to time as I’ve dodged trucks on lanes not big enough for both of us.

Now I’m sitting in a field above a stony, windswept and deserted beach reflecting on my great-great-grandfather’s decision to leave this bleak place in 1818 in search of a better life. Beside me are the substantial remains of the stone buildings which were home to my forebears…a testament to how little this place has changed over the past almost 200 years.

My first stop in Scotland was Inverness, the “capital of the Highlands” perched between the Moray Firth on the eastern coast and the famous Loch Ness to the south. It’s a bustling, friendly town, divided by the River Ness, and is a good base for touring the Highlands. Take any road and it will lead to unexpected scenic delights.

At the Inverness Library and Highland Council Archive staff genealogist Alistair Macleod can answer enquiries and undertake research (for a fee) but visitors can find much on their own by searching the records in the Family History Centre.

Initial basic research is important, and a great starting point is the website www.ancestralscotland.com, which estimates 28 million people around the world – many of them Australians - can trace their ancestry to Scotland. It’s a good idea to gather as much as you can from your own family records before you travel.

IN SEARCH OF DUNCAN

Ancestral Scotland has enlisted actor Hamish Clark (Duncan in the BBC TV series Monarch of the Glen) in its publicity campaign, and his own ancestor-hunt is recorded on the website.

Lured by a glossy brochure, when I get to Strathspey I decide to follow the Monarch trail and spend two days exploring this stunning part of Scotland. Just 30 miles southeast of Inverness, the Spey Valley is a visual feast of lochs, mountains and villages dominated by the majestic snow-topped Cairngorms.

The 17-point trail covers many of the locations from the series and if the links are sometimes tenuous, some surprises along the way more than make up for it. Like the achingly beautiful Cille Choirille Church, near Roy Bridge, or the dramatic Ruthven barracks, abandoned by the Jacobites in 1746.

There’s not a sniff of Duncan, Archie or any of the other characters from the series, but in the end it doesn’t matter…the landscape is breathtaking.

In Kingussie (home of the fictitious Glenbogle Town Hall) and nearby Newtonmore, the Highland Folk Museum reveals a lifestyle long gone. The museum at Kingussie has fairly standard exhibits, but at Newtonmore an early 18th century village has been re-created, complete with the rare Scots Dumpies chickens pecking in the yard and a couple of rare Tamworth pigs, an early English breed with glossy golden-red coats.

“They’re the closest we could find to an old Highland breed,” says museum staffer Rachel Chisholm as she leads me inside a crofter’s window-less feall (turf) house.

It is lit only by a peat fire in the centre of the floor, giving a glimmer of what village life was like in the 1730s.

HISTORIC PILES

While my ancestors’ pile turned out to be literally that – a substantial heap of stones in the rough shape of a crofter’s hut – there’s a wide choice of grand and atmospheric lodgings in Scotland.

My castle of choice, from 42 listed in Visit Scotland’s “Stay in a Castle” brochure, was Dornoch Castle Hotel. It was less castle-like than I expected, and I almost missed it, nestled in the main street alongside other lovely sandstone buildings.

But the bloody stories from its long history – involving poisonings, abduction, sackings and burnings – made up for it. Only one tower remains, and in this I slept untroubled by the rumoured ghost of a sheep-stealer.

The Royal Burgh of Dornoch is a pretty town, set back from a wide sweep of golden sandy beach about an hour north of Inverness on the east coast of the Highlands.

Three miles from my ancestors’ croft is Rua Reidh lighthouse, perched on the western cliffs overlooking the Outer Hebrides. Built in 1912 by David Stevenson (cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson), the lighthouse still operates and since automation the keeper’s house has been a guesthouse and hostel.

But perhaps most evocative of all is Culloden House, near Inverness. Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed here the night before the Battle of Culloden in 1746, which was largely responsible for the diaspora of Scottish clansmen around the world.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Cathay Pacific flies to London via Hong Kong daily from Sydney and Melbourne, five times a week from Brisbane, four times from Cairns, three times from Perth and twice a week from Adelaide. For more details www.cathaypacific.com.au or toll free 131 747, or contact your local travel agent. British Airways flies from London’s Gatwick airport to Inverness daily, www.britishairways.com.
Dornoch Castle Hotel, www.dornochcastlehotel.com, offers bed and breakfast starting from 36 pounds per person per night. Rua Reidh Lighthouse, Wester Ross, www.ruareidh.co.uk, has rates from 24 pounds per double room per night.
Culloden House Hotel, www.cullodenhouse.co.uk, has double rooms from 199 pound per night.
For ancestor hunting, Rowan Tree Ltd offers special interest weekend and week-long tours: www.rowan-tree-scotland.co.uk
Contact Highland Council Archives at Inverness Museum www.highland.gov.uk/educ/publicservices/genealogy.htm.
For more info, www.visitscotland.com or www.visitbritain.com