Having always assumed that I have no roots to speak of, I’ve gone through life slightly envious of those who can sing along on St Patrick’s Night or find comfort in where they’re from rather than where they’re at. So it came as a bit of a surprise when I suddenly found I was part of a vast global diaspora that mixes races, classes, faiths and feats into one great melting pot. By sheer internet accident, I discovered I was part of a scattered Scottish Clan – the Armstrongs – and I had roots almost everywhere, if I only bothered to look.
When someone sent me a link to the Ancestral Scotland website, which has details on the history of a host of Scottish clans, including the Armstrongs, it was like my very own version of the family history TV show Who Do You Think You Are? I resolved to find how far my ancestors went back, what deeds they’d done and what misery they’d suffered. And I definitely wouldn’t start blubbing when they told me about someone getting cholera. To be honest, I was also kind of hoping it would reveal my artistic and creative side, perhaps proving I was destined to be a best-selling novelist.
The obvious place to start exploring a Scottish clan is Edinburgh and the brand-new Scotland’s People Centre. Housed in a spectacular book-lined, high-domed chamber in the Regency splendour of the National Archives overlooking the mighty North Bridge and the clanking sprawl of Waverley Station, the Centre looks like a movie set. Opened this year, it houses vast computers in the basement, which store almost every birth, death and marriage in the whole of Scotland from as far back as 1553. This includes Madonna’s wedding to Guy Ritchie with her date and place of birth. But I wasn’t here to stalk the famous. I was stalking myself.
Iain Ferguson and Pete Wadley from the Centre were there to help my search, but first they had some… interesting news. ‘The Armstrongs were always trouble,’ Pete smiled. ‘Probably their most significant period was 1500-1600, when they basically controlled the border between England and Scotland. They could put 3,000 horsemen into the field and were thought of as the best light cavalry in Europe – but they played merry hell with law and order and when the English were fighting the Scottish, they always made sure they were on the winning side to take a healthy share of the pillaging.’
Hmm. Perhaps not the poets I was expecting – although the archive did have a ballad about one of the Armstrongs being executed by the Scottish king. Apparently James V killing my ancestor – Johnnie of Gilnockie – was so unpopular round our way that when Henry VIII showed up with a small army, the locals got swiftly out of the way and then helped him slaughter the larger Scottish force in revenge for Johnnie’s murder.
