The story of how Ella and Ralph first connected with our cousins in Shetland is a pretty amazing one. In Ella’s own words:(1)
Several years ago I was working on my mother’s father’s line, John Macdonald Beattie. He was the illegitimate son of John Macdonald and Elizabeth Beattie. I had spent much time researching this John Macdonald trying to find his parentage. I would time on Fridays at the Family History Library in Salt Lake - but to no avail!
This one Friday morning I lay in bed contemplating what to do. I decided not to go to the Library as I just didn't know of any more avenues to pursue. As I was thinking about this suddenly a female voice whispered in my ear, “Bruce.” Needless to say I was taken aback and thought - what on earth would I look for on the Bruce line? “It’s all done.” Wrong thing to say!
I got dressed and went outside to pull weeds out of our little flower bed. As I was kneeling down doing so, again that voice whispered in my ear, “Bruce!” So I stood up, thinking to myself, “This an effort of futility.” Let me mention why. My mother, Ursula Katherine Bruce Findlay had done a tremendous amount of work on the Bruce line and to me it seemed like it all had been accounted for.
However, I cleaned up, took some records with me and headed for the library. As I was driving, parking, walking into the library, down the elevator to the British Section and sitting down, I absolutely didn't know why I was there!
So I sat for a few minutes and I was prompted to look for marriages in the Shetland Islands. My grandmother, Ursilla Katherine Bruce was born in Burraove in the island of Yell, Shetland. She was one of six children. Three died in infancy, two brothers left for Australia and died quite young - so who was I to look for?
However, I went and found a microfilm on marriages in Shetland. I barely cranked the handle of the microfilm reader when I came upon the marriage of a Mary Jane Bruce. I thought to myself, “That’s a pretty name.” We don’t have anyone by that name in the records. In those times, names were used over and over again (sometimes making research very difficult). However, I kept looking at the document and her father was listed as Robert Bruce. Aha! Is there a link? However, there are lots of Robert Bruces in the islands! Mary Jane’s mother was listed as Christina Stove.
As I kept studying the document, I just had a feeling something was different. Were these parents married? So I decided to look for Mary Jane’s birth record. Found it! And yes, she was the illegitimate child of my great grandfather, Robert Bruce of Burravoe, Yell, Shetland and Christina Stove. My mother didn't know of this child and I doubt my grandmother knew as her father died when she was three years of age.
The next step for me to take was to find out if any temple work had been done. Yes, Mary Jane had been baptized and her endowments done, all by extraction, but she had not been sealed to her husband or their children sealed to them. Yes, they are an eternal family now with all 8 children sealed to them!
Through more miracles, I found present day cousins directly descended from Mary Jane! They are all very special people and it is a joy to visit them. Grandpa and I have had the privilege of visiting and staying with them several times in the last few years and always leave humbled and happy to have found them! Truly, “our family lost and found.”
Prior to Ella being inspired to look up the microfilm on marriages in Shetland, she had been corresponding with a young man named Derek at the Aberdeen & North-East Scotland Family History Society. Ella and Ralph had met Derek on one of their trips to Aberdeen, and he had found some information that was relevant to the Bruce line, which he was excited to share with Ella. However, he was delayed in sending the information, due to some issues with his computer. Unfortunately, when Ella and Ralph received the next issue of the Society’s quarterly journal in early 1998, they saw a tribute to Derek - he had passed away unexpectedly. Initially, it seemed that the information Derek had found was laid to rest with him, but we now can see that Mary Jane Bruce was waiting to be found, one way or another!
How did Ella and Ralph first make contact with the living cousins in Shetland?
When Ella finally discovered she had family in Shetland, she wrote a letter to a relative (she can’t remember which one now), who unbeknownst to her had actually passed away. The man who who was now living at that address knew that that relative was related to N in Burravoe, Yell, so he gave the letter to N. N was the first person that Ella and Ralph made contact with - a great granddaughter of Mary Jane Bruce (a second cousin once removed to Ella). And so this beautiful relationship with the Shetland cousins begins.
Ella and Ralph planned their first visit to Shetland in 2000. Ralph recalls:(2)
We were going to fly into Shetland from Aberdeen. We had reservations at the Sumburgh Hotel for the first night [an old Bruce estate converted to a hotel, in Sumburgh, near the airport]. We had a car hired. We were late because we had missed several flights so I called the hotel and I said, “We’re late, please keep our room.” She said, “No problem. The room is available. And what shall I tell these ladies who are waiting for you?” I asked Grandma, who’s waiting for us? We had no clue, because the only contact we she had was N up on Yell, and we were going to drive up there the next day.
We arrived, and we met R, E, and Ruby’s daughter S, who was pregnant at the time. [R and E are sisters, also great granddaughters of Mary Jane, second cousins to N, second cousins once removed to Ella.] It was late at night, perhaps about midnight, sitting at a table in the restaurant. The restaurant was open because the flight crew overnighted there. So there we were sitting, with these three wonderful ladies, with this big sheet of paper and they were showing, “Ok, here’s your great, great grandpappy, and here’s your great, great grandmother, and here’s our great, great grandmother.” And they were showing us all the genealogy that they did. It was very fascinating and interesting!
Ella remembers, “It surprised me that anyone knew we were going to be there!” “The drums must beat when something like this happens,” Ralph likes to say. Because N wasn’t able to greet Ella and Ralph when they initially arrived (it’s a little bit of a journey, traveling by ferry from Yell, down to Sumburgh), R, E, and S were excited to be the family emissaries. While on that trip, Ella and Ralph also met N's mother, Hughina, and B, another sister to R and E.
The next day, Ella and Ralph traveled to Yell to meet N and her mother Hughina, in Burravoe. They were caught up in conversation, when at about 4:30 in the afternoon they thought to call the B&B they’d be staying at that night to let them know they’d still be coming. Again, the drums beat. “Don’t worry. I know you’re here. you came over on the 2:20 ferry,” said the woman at the B&B.“You’ve got to watch your step coming up here,” said R…everybody knows everybody!
What did R think where she learned about these American cousins that had found them and were coming to visit? “It wasn’t a big surprise,” she said, because she had had New Zealand cousins who had “suddenly appeared,” and G had American cousins who had come as well, back to their roots. “It’s absolutely lovely,” she said, that everyone feels that they can come back, and “lovely” that we’re all part of a big extended family.
Notes:
- Written down and shared with family members in 2006.
- Recollections from Ralph, Ella, and R recorded on 29 September 2014 at R's home.
Want to add: The family trees that show how we all trace back to the same Robert Bruce of Burravoe. (Ella - Ursula Katherine Bruce Beattie - Ursilla Katherine Bruce - Robert Bruce; R/B/E - Robert John Robertson - Anderina Johnston - Mary Jane Bruce - Robert Bruce; N - Hughina Sutherland - Hellon Johnston - Anderina Johnston - Mary Jane Bruce - Robert Bruce)
