One of Mum's life goals is to collect as many relatives as possible. She prefers meeting them in person, but if she can only read about their lives, that's acceptable.
Today, we found three more relatives. I think that's a record for Mum.
While Mum will read phone books to find people, Dad searches Facebook, and he found Shona Bairnson, another one of Mum's 5th cousins (once removed). After messaging they worked out that today would be the best day to meet at the Shetland Library.
We were up at a decent hour as we didn't need to head to the library until quarter of 11. Sleeping in a little is wonderful, especially considering we're up early tomorrow for another day with the intrepid Jolene.
The library could not have been more accommodating. They put us in an activity room that wasn't being used that had a table and chairs and let us spread out what we had brought which was good because our new relatives brought their own gifts of information.
Shona brought along her sister, Marie, and her Aunt Marion. Marion is Mum's fifth cousin, like Betsy and she brought some research done by a friend of hers who is big with the Family History Society here. It included information that showed the connections.
New information to Mum is like new toys at Christmas for little kids, so she was extremely excited as she went through everything.
On a side note that picture in front of Mum is important later.
Shona brought along the pictures of her grandparents and great grandparents and I'm in love with her grandmother's wedding dress.
While Marion shared the research she brought, Mum shared the family tree done by Katherine Smith, Betsy's sister. Katherine gifted the her family history to Mum when Mum and Dad were first in Shetland in 2014. Mum also shared all of her Shetland jewelry as some of it is old enough that it would be connected to all of us. Dad had the computer so he pulled up Family Tree Maker, as it would be able to make all the connections between Shona, Marie, and Mum.
I, unfortunately, got send downstairs to go print off a variety of things, but despite all the help from several of the librarians, my computer did not want to connect to their printer no matter what we tried. And we tried. And tried. And tried.
Just before I went downstairs, Marie had to leave us to return to work. Mum wishes she'd talked to Marie more but hopefully there will be more opportunities in the future.
Remember I said that photo in front of Mum would be important later? Now is later. We received that photo last year from Elizabeth as she knew it had something to do with the Bairnson family but wasn't sure what. Mum discovered the three children were Robert, Mina, and Elizabeth Bairnson. When Shona saw the photo, she exclaimed, "That's my Dad!" Well, Elizabeth was right; it was related to the Bairnsons and through Mum's research and Dad's Facebook searching, we were able to do exactly as Elizabeth asked. We returned it to the right family. The three children were Marion's siblings and the picture was taken before Marion was "a sparkle in her father's eye" as she put it. What a weird and wonderful connection! We were quite happy to return it to the family.
Here's the family tree Shona brought, which shows her dad's genealogy, her Dad was the little boy in the picture.
Sadly, Shona and Marion had to leave because Shona had to return to work. Still, we are grateful for the time they spared for us, as we learned so much, and we got to keep a promise to Elizabeth!
Oh, here's the view from the room in the library. Even the room had a spectacular view.
Before I left the library, I had to do two things. The first was tell them how much I enjoy their Twitter war with the Orkney Library, and the second was get a picture of their mascot: Super Sheltie! Now I only need to meet Tommy the Cat, and I will have met all the fluffy cuteness that represents Lerwick.
We caught a cab to drop me off downtown to do a bit of shopping, and Mum and Dad were taken back to the flat. I got my pick of things I wanted then stopped at the Blyde Welcome to pick up some coffee and sweets. Oddly, no one objected to the coffee and sweets when I came back.
On the walk the wind was so strong it was causing a spray to come up over Bain's Beach, where there was only one, lone, Arctic Tern. I didn't get a picture because if I tried to get a picture, either the shopping, or worse, the coffee, would've blown away. Imagine my Dad's reaction if I got back to the flat, told him I did have good coffee for him, but lost it in the wind. I don't want to see a grown man cry.
Here's Dad enjoying the millionaire cupcake I brought back for him.
I've written before about our herculean efforts to get delivery from Tesco and today, we had success! They even came and hour early and absolutely everything we ordered was available. From now on, no matter what, I'm using Tesco delivery whenever I'm in Shetland in the future!
Mum and Dad are currently watching, not so ironically, Shetland, and then we're off to bed so we can be up early for our western Mainland adventure.
Stats
Horses: 1 (Super Sheltie counts!)
Dogs: 4
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