Scotland trip – May 2017 – day 6

I’m aiming to write and post a little bit each day about the family history research I’m doing, and what I find, during a week staying​ in Edinburgh. But for personal privacy, the posting of these travels on AFamilyHistoryBlog will be delayed by a few days, and will not necessarily be in day by day order! Some of these posts may be given later tweaks, with added photos, etc.

Update; You can now see all the posts from my May 2017 Scotland trip, here;
Day 1day 2day 3day 4day 5day 6day 7 – & day 8 & the big family gathering.

I took the train to Kirkcaldy, in Fife, where I went first into the museum and gallery, next to the railway station. I had a good look round the museum, and then the gallery, where there was a painting on display by my Great-grandfather, Sir William Oliphant Hutchison, of his wife Margery (Walton) and their two sons, Peter and Robert.

I then went into the local and family history room to see what I could find there. The librarian looked out for me a book titled “The Hutchisons of Kirkcaldy; A History of the Family and the Firm”. No author was identified for this text! But it looks likely to me to be by “J. Douglas Hutchison”, who complied the Hutchison family tree that I have a copy of (dated 1987), which traces the family (descendants) of the corn merchant and founder of Hutchisons Mill, Robert Hutchison, and his wife, Mary Oliphant. Title page

After looking through some of this book, I asked the librarian if I could copy some of it, using the camera on my tablet to turn it into a PDF file. But due to copyright principles, I could only copy a small portion of the book! So I focused on the start of the book, which dealt a little with some earlier generations of the Hutchison family, and with Robert Hutchison’s life up to the point of his marriage to Mary Oliphant in 1837. I would be very interested to obtain a copy of the whole document. If anyone can provide me with a copy, or knows where I can get one, then please leave a comment below, or use the Contact Page to get in touch. Thanks.

When I left Kirkcaldy Galleries, I went to have a little look round the town. Looking in the graveyard of Kirkcaldy Old Kirk, I found and gravestones with inscriptions to several members of the OLIPHANT and HUTCHISON families which I took photos of. These inscriptions included Robert HUTCHISON, and his wives; Mary OLIPHANT, and Jessie THOMSON. Another gravestone named Mary OLIPHANT’s Great-grandparents; “Robert OLIPHANT” and “Janet BETT”, “set up by” Mary’s grandfathers; “William and Henry OLIPHANT”. OLIPHANT gravestone in Kirkcaldy old kirkyard

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