Tombstone Tuesday - Chrissie Lavery, Tricia Ely

My Grandfathers sister Chrissie Shields Lavery and her Daughter Patricia Shields Ely
I love their photos on this stone in Barone road Cemetery.



Christina Shields Lavery
7th March 1918 - 27th Jan. 2008
A Cherished Mother, Grandmother and Great-Grandmother
In Our Hearts & Memories Forever
Patricia Shields Ely
28th Jan. 1946 - 30th Oct. 2010
A Wonderful Mother & Grandmother
Greatly Loved and Missed By All

Surname Saturday - Shields

I've mentioned before about not getting overly precious with family name spellings and my Grandfathers line Shields is no exception.

My first Shields I have documented in my family so far is John Shields marrying Isabella Slavin in 1860. As he couldn't write he signed by an X and his name was written by the registrar John Palmer, witnessed by Andrew Black who was the Parish Priest.

Over the next few years the name crops up in the same family with different spellings, Shiells, Shiels, Shields.

Shields Name Meaning  Irish: reduced form of O’Shields, an alternative Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Siadhail ‘descendant of Siadhal’. Northern English and Scottish: habitational name from a pair of places in Northumberland and County Durham (now both in Tyne and Wear) called North and South Shields, named with Middle English schele ‘shed’, ‘hut’, ‘shelter’. There has been much confusion between Shields and Shield and their variants.

Shiels Name Meaning  Scottish and Irish: variant of Shields.

Spellings worth checking
Shiel, Shiell, Shiels, Shiells, Sheil, Sheill, Sheils, Sheills, Shield, Shields, O’Sheil, O’Shields

Wordless Wednesday

Shields brothers and sisters

Matthew (1920-1995), Isabella (1901-1984), Annie (1904-1953), Charlie (1913-1975), Margaret (1906-1994),
Chrissie (1918-2009), Jenny Shields [ms Cunningham] (1878-1970), Maime (1898-1977).

You know I can't cope with the Wordless bit

Tombstone Tuesday

This week a stone from the Shields side of the family.

Charles McGowan Shields, Brother of my grandfather Matthew.

In Loving Memory of my dear husband Charles McG. Shields Died 5^th Dec 1975 aged 62 years, their granddaughter Carole Died 21 June 1987 aged 25 years His wife Grace Cordon died 7^th June 1991 aged 69 years.

This stone is in the Barone Road Cemetery on the Isle of Bute. 

Tombstone Tuesday

This week a gravestone from my Shields side. My grandparents Jessie Duncan & Matthew Shields and their son my Uncle Patrick Shields. The blacking in the lettering has worn away but is still readable close up. I'll need to investigate the cost of getting the lettering redone.

This stone is in the High Kirk graveyard in Rothesay, Bute.

Jessie Shields, 1910 - 1982

Son

Patrick Shields, Born 29th Jan 1937 Died 28th Dec 1993

Matthew McGowan Shields born 1910 Died 1995

Wordless Wednesday - Patrick Shields

Don't you just love Photoshop?

Before

After

National Archives of Scotland

Back in June of 2006 I blogged about finding the web pages for The National Archives of Scotland. Searching their catalogue and finding the following entry about a Justiciary appeal by my GreatGrandfather Patrick Shields against the then Lord Bute!

Record: 1 of 1
RefNo Title Date
JC31 Justiciary Appeals Processes 1864-1994
JC31/1906 Justiciary appeals processes, 1906

CountryCode GB RepCode 234
RefNo JC31/1906/19
Repository National Archives of Scotland
Title
Justiciary appeal by Patrick Shields, porter, North British Railway Company, Rothesay, and residing at Minister's Brae, Rothesay v The Most Honourable John Crichton Stuart, Marquis of Bute and Earl of Windsor etc.
Date 1906
Description Lodged 16 March 1906. Appeal dismissed.
AccessStatus: Open

I kept promising to arrange a visit to check out the record but life kept getting in the way.

I eventually made it up to Edinburgh to visit the National Archives in November of 2009. You need to register as a reader and show proof of address and photo id and you can then access the records free of charge. As I already had the record details it was quite straight forward to request the actual documents and they were shortly delivered to my desk as a bound wrap of legal documents tied in ribbon.

It was quite exciting to unwrap these and find the original documents from the court record where my grandfather was found guilty, the handwritten letter from my grandfathers lawyer lodging his appeal to the typewritten findings of the High Court of Justiciary.

I discovered my Great Grandfather had been found guilty of Day Poaching on land belonging to Lord Bute.

On the 26th November 1905, Patrick had been found in the grounds of Barone Park Farm near a rabbit burrow, in a turnip field, with rabbit nets, a ferret and a brown collie dog. When asked what he was doing by the gamewatcher a Mr John McGhee, he admitted he was looking for a rabbit.

You would think a straightforward case so why the appeal?

His lawyer, Mr J Scrymgeour Hepburn, lodged the appeal and argued the gamewatcher had not been asked who the owner of the land was and had not said himself who the owner was, so could you be convicted of poaching if no proof or evidence had been given that someone else owned the land. He put forward that as there had been no evidence of the ownership of the property and it could be in either of two parishes you could not impose a penalty. This despite it being common knowledge that the lands were part of Bute Estate.

Sounds like a legal technicality to me.

It did to the High Court as well. They repelled the procurators contentions and convicted my grandfather and charged a penalty of 20 shillings plus 10 shillings for expenses with the alternative of 14 days imprisonment.

My grandfather sensibly paid the fine.

Sunday's Obituary - Patrick Shields

The Buteman and Rothesay Express - Friday 15 August 1963, Page 5.

Mr. Patrick Shields

Rothesay lost a well-known and respected citizen with the death last Thursday of Mr. Patrick Shields, Mary Cottage, Hillhouse Road, one of the last surviving "Pointing Porters" of Rothesay Pier. He was 89.

In his earlier years Mr. Shields, who was noted for his friendliness and good humour, is thought to have saved the lives of almost 30 people from drowning, and he was the recipient of the St. John of Jerusalem Medal for services to humanity - one of the highest civilian awards obtainable. It was presented to him in 1924 at Kelso Royal Agricultural Show by the then Prince of Wales (now the Duke of Windsor).

Mr. Shields was also awarded numerous certificates for life-saving by the Royal Humane Society. He was the first captain of Rothesay Swimming Club and gained a prize medal for captaincy at the first annual competition in July, 1894. He retained the swimming club cup, being the first person to win it three times in succession.

Mr. Shields often returned to the baths in later years and on his 81st and 82nd birthdays he enjoyed a dive from the springboard.

He retired as a pier porter at the age of 65 and, until about ten years ago, conducted a licensed brokers' business with a store in Ladeside Street. During the first world war he served with the 51st Highland Division.

Mr. Shields is survived by his wife, two sons Matthew and Charles, and four daughters Mrs Isobel Lachlan, Mrs Margaret McLean, Mrs Christine Lavery and Mrs Mary Slaven.

The Funeral was on Saturday to Rothesay Cemetrery from St. Andrew's Church.

------------------

One correction to this should be that his sister Isobel had the surname Locklin not Lachlan.

Wordless Wednesday - Matthew Shields

My grandfather Matthew Shields,
early 1930's Terratorial Soldier with Royal Garrison Artillary

Tombstone Tuesday

I've decided I need to be more regular in my blogging. To try and help me keep me on track I'm going to use some blogging prompts from Geneabloggers.com so for today its the turn of Tombstone Tuesday.

This is a photo of the first gravestone I found when I started my family tree research.

When my grandfather died in 1995 we were clearing out cupboards and I found various photos and documents including birth and marriage certificates, old newspapers and lair records.

Later, while visiting the cemetery to see my Grandfather's headstone, I used the details on the lair records to find my great grandparents headstone (pictured left).

In Memory of Patrick Shields

Died 7th March 1963, aged 89

Beloved Husband of

Janet Cunningham

Died 23rd Dec, 1970, aged 92.

also their children

Patrick & Jenny

also their Daughter

Isabella Shields

Died 26th Feb, 1984, aged 82

Beloved wife of James Locklin

Lost at sea HMS Hood 1941.

This stone was a great starting point for my research and gave me lots of information for my initial family tree.

The red glow on this photo is not ghost related but due to light getting into the film in my camera in the days before digital.

Where does a month go?

Well where does a month go indeed! Tidying and organising my research thats where.
I've manged to get all my family research documents and certificates filed in some sort of order so I can acutally find what I'm looking for or what I'm missing quite easily.

I've tried various filing methods in the past and still end up losing track of where a document is or where I found information. Using a suggestion from Organise Your Paper Files I have now organised my information by Marriage number that most programs generate. I keep documents for that family together until i find a marriage for a child and they get their own section or I find their parents marriage and that gets another section. I can use my genealogy program to print a list of marriages with marriage record numbers and that becomes the index for the front of my files. So far its working really well and I can easily what information I still need on any family group.


While having a general trawl through Google with my names and places that I'm researching I came across the National Archives of Scotland. Searching their catalogue I found the following entry about a Justiciary appeal by my GreatGrandfather against the then Lord Bute! So now I have to arrange a trip to Edinburgh to see the document to find out what its all about.

Record: 1 of 1
RefNo Title Date
JC31 Justiciary Appeals Processes 1864-1994
JC31/1906 Justiciary appeals processes, 1906

CountryCode GB RepCode 234
RefNo JC31/1906/19
Repository National Archives of Scotland
Title
Justiciary appeal by Patrick Shields, porter, North British Railway Company, Rothesay, and residing at Minister's Brae, Rothesay v The Most Honourable John Crichton Stuart, Marquis of Bute and Earl of Windsor etc.
Date 1906
Description Lodged 16 March 1906. Appeal dismissed.
AccessStatus: Open

First Entry

Starting a blog to help me record research and findings on my family tree.

Came back to edit this first post as I realised it would have helped to say what I'm researching.

I am following my family tree back through the Cowie, Duncan, Shields and Smith lines in Rothesay, Bute, Buckie, Glasgow, Lewis, Banff and eventually Donegal Ireland.

I'll be updating my family tree on ancestry.com and starting a family tree website www.joannecowie.co.uk