User:Middenrakker

I"m the Middenrakker, it is an old scottish word to describe, a nosey person, one who is also searching for the facts and knowledge of his hidden interests,this just also might be of interest to other like minded people.Iam seventy years of age,and have always been from my early teenage years into my familys past history,also others past events in this wonderful world of ours. When I retired through ill health, some twenty years ago,I decided to spend some of these hours of new found freedom on my one true interest,social histories of my neighbouring country-side.I did this by helping out ministers of country parish churches,in cleaning and recording old gravestones,mainly in the counties of Angus,Perthshire,and the kingdom of Fife,once i"d completed my work of peeling back years of neglect,ingrained dirt excetera,I would then measure the tombstone width its length record this in my note book, also describe i"ts condition wear and tear depending on long it had lain buried under the sod of Gods acres.I would of a winters evening sit in my little study at my desk, rewrite my records as sometimes one would write at speed,for some of my work took place in private family burial grounds,at the requests of these families,of whom i"d meet through being introduced by the minister of who"s church-yard stones I happend to be restoring at that time.I spent hours in local reference libraries my friend and counsellor the local libarian,god bless them worth their weight in gold,discovered the index books I was inmy element, sometimes up to eight hours a day i"d write pages of dates,marriages,births,deaths.Legends galore of viking graves accidentally found by poor labourers out digging drainage ditches,up by finavon beside a dove-coot,two corpse"s,a man and a woman,in the grave were found two torc-cloak claspes the mans weighed amighty two pounds in solid gold the womans a mere one pound. The date of this find 1824,the two men called upon the minister of the parish, to show him their find,now the stipends of this minister was £8.00.scots,he was just as poor as the two men who"ed found the beautiful golden viking torc"s,but he was better educated, more so,he could read and write,rev,Thomas was not a bad man,he was a poor-man h"d just buried his only son a few months before,the two labourers were indentured to the local lord, both unmarried very superstitious so the educated minister persuaded them that what they"ed found was of an evil satanic nature and that they would have to be purged of the evil iron that they had touched and handled,for so much so that their souls were now in danger of being dammed for all eternity,the minister frightend the two poor men so much they kept their secert to them selves for fear of their souls.The minister well he lived not in luxury but in a modest manner,when he was coming to the end of his life he passed on gold torc"s to his remaining childern,telling them not to depart this information to no one.This is a true event from scottish social history and is documented by a local victorian historian who"s book is no longer in print,1884,it can be found in my local reference library under A.J.Warden.For reference and knowldge of my country"s fascinating history of which one i"ve just remembered and written down for other interested parties,bye the bye,£8.00-pounds scots is I think around 17/shillings or 85pence,this cannot be found on any other web site.I"m still searching into my own ancestor"s family back-ground,namely my great-great-grandmother"s Elizabeth{nee,Martin}Currie,great-grandmother"s,Helen{nee,Currie}Martin,both related to sir Donald-Martin-Currie1825-1909.I"m more interested in my surname Martin,i"ve traced Elizabeth{Martin"s}own brother and uncle of Donald Currie,namely John Martin,died 1855,he was a partner in the Hoyle&Martin,company,Greenock sugarhouse lane numbers 1&2 1854-1857 Number one,1847-1857 Number two.I"am yours sincerly. Middenrakker,.