Durness Parish Register - Part 2

[wilros]

djct59,

Attached is an updated draft of the township map for my family genealogy narrative. Thanks very much for helping me improve the accuracy of the map.

There are still two townships that are missing from the map - Achumore and Aultcoirfheasgil. Here's the relevant baptisms.

1802 - Angus MacLeod, alias macneilmacnish, in Aultcoirfheasgil, and his wife Janet Ross, John, 15 April

1803 - Angus MacLeod, little tenent in Aultcoirefhreasgil, and his wife Janet Ross, Marion (Mary Ann), 23 June

1806 - Angus MacLeod, herdman in Aultcoirefhreasgil, and his wife Janet Ross, William, 17 Nov.

1809 - Angus MacLeod, little tenent in Aultcoirefraisgil, and his wife Janet Ross, Alexander, 11 Mar.

1811 - Angus MacLeod in Achumore, and his wife Janet Ross, Kenneth, 21 May

1814 - Angus MacLeod, shepd., Achumore, and his wife Janet Ross, Angus - 20 December

1817 - Feb'y 4 - John son to Angus MacLeod shep'd Achumore

1819 - 7 September - Jannet, daughter to Angus MacLeod shepherd Achumore and Janet Ross

[wr]

 

[djct59]

Wilros:

They're a long way apart.

Achiemore was Capeside, west of the Kyle roughly where the road on the map turns 90° to the left.

Aultcoirfheasgil was slightly to the north of Badlahavish on the West Moine, overlooking Loch Eriboll and Eilean Hoan.

[meanno]

Aultcoirfheasgil was slightly to the north of Badlahavish on the West Moine, overlooking Loch Eriboll and Eilean Hoan.

Aultcoirfheasgil is a crucial location for me. Whilst I agree there is a Freisgill on the West Moine also on the western side of the Kyle of Durness where Thompson 1832 puts Grudy there is an "Allt Coire Fresgill", and it's not that far from Achiemore which makes more sense for Angus Macleod.
I would really like it to be on the West Moine as it would help to confirm my lineage but I can't see that it is.

[djct59]

Meanno: I don't see Allt Coire Fresgill on the Cape Side on my copy of Thomson's map from 1832. While that has its limitations, for its time it's pretty accurate.

Looking at the word to my mind  you need -
A stream (allt)
A bowl like dip from glaciation (corrie)
A narrow waterfall (Norse - Frasa "quashing" Gill "ravine")

There are waterfalls on the stream two kilometres south of Friesgill bothy where the stream joins the Allt an't Strathain, but no waterfalls near the habitable land on the Parph Capeside, so I would be looking for some stronger evidence.

Also I note that Angus was initially a herdman (cattle) before becoming a shepherd. The Parph is suitable only for sheep (my uncle was shepherd there for over thirty years) so herding cattle there would seem unlikely.

As I said, I'll keep an open mind but am looking for something quite convincing.

[meanno]

I think it's pretty clear on this although obviously a more recent map. It's towards the top left corner.

[djct59]

Thanks. That stream is unnamed on my OS map, but it clearly rises in a corrie and flows downhill.

Were my uncle still alive he'd have known where it was 

[wilros]

next version attached.

send corrections and suggestions.

btw, here's an interesting photo.

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4125284

photographer is likely standing just off the cape wrath road

[djct59]

Wilros:

Yes the barn has been renovated recently as the sheep over there belong to a local farm. There was a dreadful accident there four years ago - https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/highlands/877965/shepherd-killed-as-quad-bike-plunges-off-cliff/

[meanno]

Wilros;

Yes - Robert Sutherland (1819-1909), son of Angus Sutherland and Barbara MacKay married Hughina Morrison in 1884 and was the father of William George Sutherland (1862-1953).

William married Annabella MacLeod in 1904. Their youngest son was Robert Hugh Sutherland aka "Bertie Boer" of Sangomore (1914-77). His second wife was the widowed Elizabeth Jane Stanley/Parkes (1908-76), mother of Stanley and aunt of John Lennon.

My cousin remembers John's ill-fated return to Durness in 1969 when he crashed his car on a tight bend at Faolinn 

djct59: A long-winded question - bear with me
When Robert married Hughina in 1844 he was in Sangomore and Hughina was in Sangobeg. In the 1851 census they are in Sangomore and he is a grocer, but later a crofter according to his death crt.
Hughina's grandmother Barbara Ross/McCulloch is living with them described as an annuitant no doubt because of her legacy from her brother John. Hughina is also well off in her own right having inherited £200 at least from her uncle Hugh McCulloch.
When Angus, Robert's father, married Barbara Mackay in 1811 he is described as a young man in his father's house in Saingomore.

Do you know or believe that the house in Sangomore with the John Lennon plaque pictured below from Google streetview is the same, or at least the same location, as the original Sutherland home/croft going back to at least 1811.

In other words, when Robert Hugh Sutherland and Elizabeth Stanley holidayed in Durness, were they staying at an ancestral Sutherland home/croft rather than one they bought in to?

It would be nice to connect an actual house or location to Barbara Ross and Hughina Morrison when I'm writing Hugh McCulloch's story, particularly one with a John Lennon connection!