No, I'm not connected to the Moirs, but I know that a young salmon fisher from St. Cyrus called Christopher Moir (s/o John Moir and Jane Smith) married a woman called Agnes Lindsay from my home town of Cellardyke in Fife in 1861. It was a short-lived marriage as Christopher died in 1864.
I've been researching Cellardyke families (mostly fishing families) for about 30 years and have written a book about the village and the parish of Kilrenny of which it forms a part. Nowadays Cellardyke is basically the east end of Anstruther, home to the Scottish Fisheries Museum, which is full of photos and artifacts gifted by Cellardyke fishing families.
The interesting thing about Agnes Lindsay is her father James Lindsay, who describes himself in the censuses as "Experimental Assistant to a Natural Philosopher". He was in fact the technician who helped Sir John Leslie, professor of natural philosophy (i.e. physics) at Edinburgh University with his experiments. During the long university vacations, James Lindsay went to the herring fishing out of Cellardyke!
James Lindsay is mentioned by Robert Louis Stevenson in his memoir "College Memories" as "old Lindsay", and James's son Thomas Lindsay - who succeeded him in the job - is mentioned by J.M. Barrie of 'Peter Pan' fame. Both Stevenson and Barrie were students at Edinburgh University.
Between them, James and Thomas Lindsay clocked up 116 years of service to the University of Edinburgh.
I mentioned that I wrote a book about Cellardyke. I open my chapter on the twentieth century by quoting from a letter written by a Lance-Corporal Moir to his mother in Cellardyke describing the horrors of the Boer War in South Africa. She had taken the letter along to the local newspaper office for publication.
Harry
