Morison-Farquhar-Dingwall Fordyce and Others Web Site

   My name is David Sangster and I started this site using MyHeritage.com., a system that allows anyone like you and me to create a site, private or public (like this one), to build their family tree and share photos and documents.    The main purpose of this site is to make available an online transcription of the material referred to below. The "family tree" is to help readers to place family members mentioned in the text.    My cousin Morag Sutcliffe inherited a bundle of 130 letters and a diary kept by Lt William Grant Farquhar (b1829) of 1st Regiment, Madras Native Infantry, and another series of 19 letters from William's older cousin Lt Robert Farquhar (b1811) of 28th Regiment Madras N.I. This cache was preserved by our great-grandmother Amelia Lumsden (b1833), passed on to our grandfather, Oswald, and from him to Morag's father John.   There are five folders : an Introduction with a summary of the contents of the main folders, Robert Farquhar's letters,  William's "Burma Diary & Letters",  William's" India Diary & Letters", and a folder of "Strays", a few letters which do not have a place in the main folders. The folders are stored in the "Photos" part of the site, and can be accessed by clicking the name of the folder in the side-bar on the left of the screen.     I was given a Memorandum Book kept by Robert Oswald, Shipmaster of Dysart, between 1807 and 1812 when his ship, the "Phoenix", was employed in the Government Transport Service during the Napoleonic war.  I have transcribed the contents in five parts and they can be found in a single folder together with an Introduction and three photos of the notebook.  Robert Oswald can be found in the tree by tracking back through the Lumsden line.   My immediate family (mother's side) are Lumsdens. My cousin Sally (Richards) manages a site with a complete tree of our family, and my cousin Morag (Sutcliffe) has begun building a tree of Lumsdens and Sutcliffes. Deb Ford's site (Farquhar-Atkins-Bernard) is dedicated mainly to the very large family of Colonel William Farquhar and his Malaccan "bibi" Nonio Clement, but features also a simple tree of the Lumsdens, and of the Atkins family. All these sites are private, but enquiries from interested parties are welcome. Sally, Morag and Deb are all members of this site.   My tree hops rather rapidly through the Lumsdens to concentrate on the tangle of relationships among the families of the title, many of whom are mentioned in the letters. I gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the book compiled by Alexander Dingwall-Fordyce (born 1816), "Family Record of the Name of Dingwall-Fordyce in Aberdeenshire", published in 1885.   I hope visitors to the site will dip into the letters, diary and notebook and will find things to interest and amuse. Feedback is very welcome : don't be shy!   The site was last updated on Nov 29 2022, and it currently has 5 registered member(s). If you wish to become a member too, please click here.