THE AUTHOR AND THE PRESENT FAMILY

THE COUSINS 2008
Isabelle Forsyth, Cressida Potter, Rona Harper, Liz Barrack

THE HUSBANDS 2008
Brian Harper, David Barrack, Richard Denn, Stewart Forsyth (behind)

Cressida Potter, Richard Denn, Vivianne Reid, Melba Reid, Jack Reid - 2008

THE REID COUSINS AND AUNTS  2005 - this is our first meeting for 45 years!
Rona Harper, Melba Reid, Cressida Potter, Bunty Milne (sitting), Jack Reid, Isabelle Forsyth, Liz Barrack

Bunty and I June 2007

2nd cousins, Margurita Esson and myself - 2008

Margaret Reid, my mother, died in 2004 at the great age of 93 and with her passing, the urge to find and log any information I could discover on our family became paramount.  As each generation dies out, the information they hold dies with them. So here I have attempted to collect, collate and log as much knowledge, information and stories as I can find. I started collecting some seven years ago and produced a rudimentary family tree.  I put the project on the back burner until mum died, but have now started the mission again in earnest and I never cease to get excited as I discover yet another member of our very large and prolific family.

Until the death of my grandfather William Reid in 1960, I visited the family with either or both of my parents every year.  2005 saw my first trip back to Aberdeenshire for the first time since then. It is still as I remember it, although the Shannoch Farm has now passed out of the family. But it has been restored and renovated to a very high standard and the farm steadings are in the process of being turned into another desirable dwelling. The end of the building which held the chaumer is now a large double garage and the project is set to become a successful move into the 21st century.  Beech Cottage down the brae, where my grandparents settled after retirement, and indeed where my own mother was actually born, has also been renovated and extended into a very desirable residence. 

I based myself in Glenbuchat, the earliest home of the Reids. My g-g-g-g-grandparents William and Anna hailed from here in the early 1700s and indeed I believe William's father James also came from here.  A branch moved to Glenkindie at some time and the Reids farmed both East and West Rinmore for at least four generations and Tollafraike for nearly as long.  This was for me, a real voyage of discovery. I had very little idea what the glens or the dwellings looked like. The excitement mounted as we drove up the Glenkindie for the first time, passing the by now familiar names due to my poring over the Ordinance Survey map in depth over the last year. We came within 75 yards or so of Rinmore on that first day, when we were forced to reverse some 200 yards or more back down the glen, due to an approaching herd of cattle, who were moving pretty swiftly hotly pursued by a farmer. Not wishing to tackle said herd, we gave up and decided to try again the following morning. This time we were successful and Rinmore Farm (as East Rinmore is now known) gradually appeared high up the brae on the right hand side, exactly as stated in the map. I was quite overwhelmed to actually see it after so much anticipation. We called in and were warmly welcomed by the current farmers Sandy (the farmer in pursuit of the cattle the day before) and Margaret McInnes. I will never forget the feeling of actually sitting in the same room and seeing the same view as generations of my ancestors had done before me. On leaving we were taking photos of the house and what I thought was West Rinmore, when Margaret tactfully pointed out that what I was actually taking pictures of was the chaumer, as West Rinmore was a further 100 yards or so up the glen.  I felt very much a townie at that point! 

Well we did actually make it to West Rinmore, which is now a ruin. It is sad to see it as such, after many generations of Reids had toiled so hard to make a living from it over the years. It is difficult to see exactly how the layout would have appeared as the area is so overgrown. But there is a ruined steading with chaumer in front of the dwelling house, which is situated higher up the bank. No one still living in Glenkindie can remember it inhabited, it is believed that the last family left around the time of WWI.  On leaving here and moving further up the glen, Tollafraike can be seen on the left hand side of the Kindie Burn. This is in better condition, although uninhabited, as the last people to live here didn't leave until the 1970s.

We toured the whole glen and I took photos of every dwelling, the Kindie Burn from most angles, the road up, the road down, the glen to the left and the right, the top and the bottom - in fact everything. So here it all is on this site, not all the photos all the time, they will be changed periodically. I now feel in touch with previous generations of my family. I know what they saw every day of their lives, the topography of the area, the momentous difficulty in making the farms pay and the sheer effort to just survive in such an unforgiving landscape. Beautiful as it is in late May, I can readily imagine the same area in the bleak wintertime, without electricity, running water and inside sanitation. They bred them tough in those days and only the strong survived. I have the utmost respect for them all - the Reids and their friends and neighbours through the generations.

3rd cousins John Glennie and myself 
beside the Potomac River, Washington DC.

3rd cousins, Robbie Gordon and myself with Robbie's classic Chrysler - 2008

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

My full name is Cressida Nicola Eda Potter and I was born in London to Margaret Grant Reid and George Henry Judd and I have lived in England all my life. Unfortunately with the passing of my father's last surviving sibling in 2000, the English side of my family has died out. But the Reids still thrive, I have 8 first cousins in all, born to five of William Reid and Elizabeth Nicol's children - Catherine, Isabelle, Edith, Jack, Rona, Elizabeth, Isobel and John and they in turn have produced the next generation.