In August we welcomed a party of twenty Americans from Chicago on an ancestral tour. One month prior to this we were contacted on their behalf by a travel agency based in London, who provided us with very little information about a John Bruce who emigrated with his parents to America.
The family had originally lived in India St, Inverness where John’s father was a plumber, an occupation he continued in America. The family arrived in Ellis Island in 1959 aboard the SS United States, which still holds the record for the fastest Atlantic crossing. John married there and became a US citizen in 1987. Sadly he passed away and his widow decided to bring the extended family over to Scotland in search of their roots.
They knew there was a connection to North Kessock and a house called Craigton Villa. Apart from that and a few family photos there was little in the way of further information. So armed with that, the search began.
Both paternal and maternal lines were followed. It transpired that the Bruce family were from Lossiemouth, Morayshire and prior to that at Findochty. Each generation followed the same profession of fishermen.
The maternal line were Smiths from Barvas on Lewis and the patriarch Peter Smith, joined the Northern Constabulary, spending his career in Lewis, Ullapool and latterly Dingwall. We were able to follow his career as his personal records are held here at the Highland Archive as part of the Northern Constabulary collection. Peter married twice and his son Donald McAskill Smith from the first marriage, joined the City of Glasgow police force, and volunteered in WW1 with 7th Bn The Black Watch. Killed in 1917, he is remembered on the Knockbain War Memorial.
On their arrival at the archive the American party were welcomed and to their total surprise, experienced a half hour ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ presentation on all the material discovered about their family. Then they were shown birth, marriage and death certificates plus census returns for both lines. The icing on the cake was the display of the original police records for Pc Peter Smith.
Presented with a CD of all the collated material, the following day the family visited North Kessock where members of the North Kessock Heritage Society were able to show them around and take them to Craigton Villa. They were even able to meet folk who could remember the family and that evening they had dinner with a distant relative.
This was our first venture into the field of ancestral tourism: researching, presenting and collaborating, with other heritage stakeholders, to provide the complete package. But from the very positive results and feedback experienced by all parties, it won’t be our last.
Chris Halliday, Family History Leader
