April 10th

It's April 10th and on this day - a very long time ago - in 1794 - your 5x great grandparents, John West and Janet Simpson, were married.  They were fisher people who lived in the village of Ferryden and they had eleven children.  One of those children, the 3rd born, was Alexander who is your 4x great grandfather.

The FERRY of Ferryden

And now we head for Canada for the birth on this day in 1892 of your 2nd cousin 2x removed, Gordon Robert Ironside.  Gordon was born in Hamilton, Ontario.  He was the first of three children for Joseph Ironside and Jane Craib, both of whom came from Aberdeenshire, Scotland (but came separately - they married in Hamilton).  And because I missed his death I will use this moment to say that Gordon signed up for World War 1 (and was a plumber at that time).  He married Luella Garrison in 1923 but that ended in divorce 1933.  He was a steam fitter with the Hamilton Cotton Works and lived in Hamilton his whole life.  He died on March 27th 1947 at age 54 of coronary thrombosis.

We have a bunch of branches of the family which come to Canada and the U.S.A.  They are all on grandma's side of the family - specifically her father's side.  I think without exception emigration has been on the part of our female ancestors.  So the names on this side of the atlantic aren't the Christies and Donalds - but Finnie, Ironside, Milne, Riddel.