Raitt roots - are we incurious lot?
People these days are searching for their roots - but seemingly only if they lie outside their own countries. Americans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans are all searching for their Scottish roots - trying to find out about their forebears from the “auld” country. But with few exceptions Scottish people, at least in the Raitt family, are not at all curious where they came from and who their ancestors might be.
It seems to have been only my father who had made any attempt to ascertain the Scottish Raitt family history - he visited libraries and churchyards all over Scotland noting down details, copying chunks out of books he borrowed, and trying to follow up links. However, he did not have the luxury of the Internet and its vast sources and since taking up his mantle (and trying to decipher his scrawly handwriting!) I have made tremendous strides forward (or should I say backwards to the past?) and it is such a pity that he is no longer here to witness the fruits of his early efforts.
However, presumably because he knew them well, he left only scanty details about his own family - parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts. And as he was last in the line of his siblings, then there was no-one left to ask. My cousin, Charles, in South Africa, had had researched the family ancestry for himself - just a straight line, with no mention of siblings or other relatives. And the daughter, Elaine, of another cousin back in Scotland was also trying to discover her own tree. Pooling resources and helped by the family trees of our American cousins, I have been able to fill in quite a few gaps and details of my father’s uncles and aunts from both his father’s (William Raitt) and mother’s (Helen Scorgie) side.
But the point is that, apart from the Americans and non-direct relatives in Australia, and the odd one in Scotland or England looking for some offshoot of an offshoot of their spouse’s family, I have not come across anyone else looking up any Raitts or Scorgies or Sangsters or Kelmans or Carrolls or McAnenys or anyone else associated with our family. Why? Are they incurious? Don’t they care? Does it matter!
Monday, 28 September 2009
