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A Warm Welcome to this
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Welcome to this website project which I hope will be of some interest to you all regardless of your own origins and spelling of the surname McHardy. Congratulations to you all as you come of good Pictish/Norse stock and your surname originates in the Highlands of Aberdeenshire in the Northeast of Scotland from where it spread north and south. Wherever this finds you in the whole wide world, what better a start in life can one have ?
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Grunny McHardy as I remember her from the 1970's at Little Dovecot on Candacraig. Written on the back of the picture in her own handwriting; "Taken New Years Morning at 00.15 am 1972. Hope you like my decorations". My grandfather had died in 1945 and his photograph was always on display on the mantelpiece. The old green tiled fireplace had an oven built into it where she would store her kindling for lighting her fire. I remember on a few occasions the kindling got too hot and would start smoking out around the door seal! |
Where does such a project as this begin ? I know for me it started in childhood in the 1970's with stories told to me on weekend and school holiday trips to Strathdon, West Aberdeenshire, to visit my paternal grandmother Mary Petrie Cook 1895 to 1989. Granny, or Grunny as we pronounce it in Aberdeenshire, had a great feeling for the past. She had married my grandfather Charles McHardy at the Bridge of Alford Hotel in 1925. They had met on his return from the Great War, my grandmother was working in the shop at Bellabeg in Strathdon having herself been born at Cottown of Clova, Lumsden. I remember visiting Strathdon cemetery with grandmother on visits to my grandfather's grave. The old kirkyard lying across the road was a place of interest and I can remember granny showing me the gravestone of John McHardy of Easter Corryhoul, and telling me that I was descended from the Corryhoul McHardys. It mentioned that his ancestors had been in Corryhoul upwards of 600 years !
Like our surname, Corryhoul also has more than one spelling, the current postal version being Corriehoul, or as it also appears in the 1696 List of Pollable Persons "Corriehoule". There are now sadly no McHardys living in Strathdon, or in Corgarff where it was once said they were more common in number than sheep. As each of us grows older we wish we still had the benefit of our older relatives to quiz over facts. With the passing of the years each generation looses a little more of their family story and it may also become distorted. For some of you reading this it is not only the distance of the years but also the physical distance brought about by emigration which will cloud your own origins.
I have for some time collected various materials on the family but had never really started collating them into printed form until recently. Not having completed that particular project satisfactorily, the pace of change in technology now sees me switch to creating a simple webpage which I hope will grow and improve with my ability at web page building. Who knows ? I may even invest in a digital camera one of these years ! You will see that I have built into the web page a feedback section. I hope you will feel free to tell me of any faults in my data, the working of the web pages, and any input you may have yourself. I hope one day some of you will contact me and that I will be able to add links to your own web pages created about other decedents of the McHardy family of Corryhoul, or anyone of the surname McHardy in any of it's spelling variations. I also draw your attention to the McHardy discussion forum at FamilyHistory.com, and would suggest you use this to create a bigger McHardy gathering. You'll find a hyperlink to this sites on the links page.
Thank you for taking time to read my wanderings. Send me an email at ****mchardy@tinyonline.co.uk (Note: Webcrawlers keep picking up this email address and as a result I get loads of unwanted advertising spam. To use the email address just remove the stars and you have the correct one).
I have undertaken this project for the benefit of my nephews and neices who are in "chronological" order of appearance on this earth: Charles David, John Derek, Ruth Isabel, Ailsa Jane, James Alexander, and the "bairn" of the family Caitlin Elizabeth. Now Children, no laughing at your uncle's picture below ! As if you would.
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Go back to the Contents Index Page by clicking on the picture of the cute wee Scottish laddie above.
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