Lovat Scouts--Wife's family connection

[Joe Sweeney]

It's been awhile since I've been very active on this forum and have never started a topic in "Soldier".

I thought I'd share a bit of luck I've had with my wife's family.

My wife's Great Grandfather (Wiiliam Mcakenzie) emigrated from Lochcarron, Scotland, to Wyoming in 1906 and never returned.

My wife has always had some geneogicial info on her Scottish roots with photos of William's parents etc. in Lochcarron and siblings names etc. Howver, all contact with relatives were lost as most of the siblings ended up in Wyoming and Montana.

Several years ago. we made a trip back to Lochcarron and found some family graves etc--we weren't realy prepared family history wise. In fact, we stayed at a hotel in Lochcarron and when we said we were here for family research, Fiona who was checking us in exclaimed "oh no your not a Mackenzie! everyone here is a Mackenzie!!!" (she being from Glasgow.) "In fact they don't even go by Mackenzie, Sandy Bank, Johnny Ham and Johnny Post are all Mackenzies but don't use Mackenzie in everyday use." She even related that they had a local phone book that used the common names and not family names and she said "they don't see anything wrong with that". So we thought we'll we wont get far with local research.

In September we took my father-n law back to Lochcarron to see where his Grandfather, whom he was very close too, came from. This time we had done a ton of research and found out names of houses and that they really came from Stromemore etc. We still had no expectation of contacting any living family members. However, we decided to email the local library in the "Howard Doris" center which also serves as a senior center. We sent some detailed family info. The library itself is extremely small with no geneoligical records. To our luck the librarian (whom we owe a lot to) decided not to forward our email to Inverness but asked some of the seniors. The first person she asked knew the Family and her family took over the Croft that Williams Father had been farmering. So we now have wife's relatives everywhere in Lochcarron who were able to locate old crofts that the family had used going back to 1820's. Amazing folks.

The Great War connection is William's Mother's (Ellen-MacLeod-Mackenzie) nephew served in the Lovat Scouts in the Great War. His common name was Roddy Mor and in fact other than service records he never goes by Roderick Macleod. He's actually my wife's 1st Cousin 3 times removed in the bizarre cousin classification schema.

The biggest bit of luck is there are a ton of photos of him in the Great War and his service records survived intact.

Roddy Macleod's (4169) service started on 5 March 1912 when he joined the 2nd Lovat Scouts. In October 1914 he was in E Sqdn. He served in Gallipoli, Egypt, Salonika and France. In 1916 he was part of the amalgamation of the 1st and 2nd LS into the 10th Bn (LS) QOCH and in 1917 took a new number 225656. He also contracted Malaria which qualified him for a disability pension.

There is also a current family connection to British Army service. The current Pipe Major of the Scots Guards Stuart Mackenzie is my wife's 3rd Cousin and his father was the one who was kind and showed us all the family locales in Strommore. Not sure if Stuart knows this yet!!!

Joe Sweeney

[Waddell]

Nice story Joe. It certainly pays to ask and let people know what your researching.

Are there any group photos of Lovat Scouts or any in Salonika?

I think most of them caught malaria.

Scott

[Joe Sweeney]

Scott,

There are several group photos. Two prior to departing from Gallipoli and taken in Bedfordshire withj one showing E sqd mounted the other dismounted. A third shows Roddy in a large possed group photo wearing KD which I think was taken in Egypt. A fourth shows three scouts in SD with one wearing a WSD cap with LS badge. I think this may have been taken in the winter of 16/17 in Salonika.

There are a few studio solo shots too.

I'm trying to get good copies of these now. A few were posted in a book called "Arnisdale and Loch Hourn" but aren't scanning too well.

Joe Sweeney

[Guest neilf9981]

Hi there, an old thread I know but do you still have those group photos? I'm researching a couple of great uncles who i tink did the same tour of duty in the lovat scouts, they were Donald (2058/225235) and Duncan (2150/225236) Fraser from the Black Isle.