Where Is William
Excerpt of the oral history note from a relative in a previous generation, that may help me 'crack the code'!
I’m trying every avenue to trace my elusive Campbell ancestors. A relative finds me on Ancestry and introduces me to another cousin. With her note from Great Aunt Julia, now I have clues to follow…
Family history wasn’t a topic in our household while I was growing up. We interacted with close relatives – parents, siblings, grandparents – and sometimes aunts, uncles and cousins. Occasionally, I heard the name of a great aunt, great uncle, or great grandparent. We just went about our family and individual lives: school, work, play, friends. We knew our heritage was Scottish, and that we were from Montreal. That seemed to suffice!
Now I’m keen to learn where our Campbell ancestors were from in Scotland.
There’s a certain goblet that I adored, in our dining room cabinet. I think I liked it because it was unique, and I wasn’t allowed to touch it as a child. I looked at it through the glass. At Christmas-time, I could gently handle it when I brought out the fancy dishes. It’s etched with flowers and “Our Colin, Sep. ‘57”. As that was before my time, it was history to me. Turns out it was my great-grandfather’s birth goblet from 1857.
I’ve seen photos of our great-grandfather, from ‘the’ beach in Maine. Our family had been going there for summer vacations since my father was a toddler. When we were kids, Dad would use a croquet wicket to draw a maze in the hard flat sand after the tide went out. It was big enough (and we were small enough) that you couldn’t see from above. You had to walk each route to see if it came to a stop, until you could find your way through.
It’s neat to see black and white photos of our Grampa doing that at the beach when Dad was a boy.
Grandfather Campbell draws a maze in the sand at Higgins Beach, Maine, per family tradition!
Once we were a bit older, this family tradition gave way to body-surfing and more active play with balls. It was only years later – when I had major surgery to straighten my jaw – that I thought of gentle activities like the maze. By this point, my Dad had passed away, and his father and grandfather were long gone.
Some time before I began ancestry research, I looked up the meaning of the surname Campbell. It comes from Cam Beul, or crooked jaw! So I figure I’m the real deal.
My father's Campbell Clan items from his trips to Scotland. Family crest motto "Ne Obliviscaris" - Forget Not.
Being a well-known and well-off clan who like to put things in writing, I figure once I find the right branch, others will have already researched it through. This may be the case, but it’s finding that starting point in Scotland that eludes me.
Instead of describing all my effort to date, I thought I’d sum it up with this little poem.
WHERE IS WILLIAM
I’m trying to find my Campbells
And I’ve sure looked here and there
But as far as I can tell
There’s scant trace anywhere
Greenock, Islay, Inveraray
Colin, Duncan, Alex, Will
Be it birth or death or wedding day
Can’t locate our forebears still
I hired someone at a Highland archive
And joined the Campbell clan
Filled my tree with other relatives
But have yet to find our man
I’ve got the crooked jaw
DNA cousins and my name
But since chief Cam Buel at Loch Awe
Don’t yet know from whence I came
I’ve got plenty more to ask
As I try to find my kin
But drams of malt may drain a cask
Before the answer’s in.
Cue the Barbara’s. A woman named Barb contacts me via Ancestry. We have a Campbell ancestor in common: Colin’s father William. That Barb introduces me to another Barbara, who has the same great-grandfather as me, namely Colin himself. The one whose birth goblet now sits in my dining cabinet, as the fifth generation to shepherd this family relic.
Barbara and I are second-cousins, although she’s twenty years my senior. She’s the eldest of the eldest siblings, and I’m youngest of the youngest. She knew our Great Aunt Julia, my Grampa’s younger sister. Family history enthusiasts for decades, Barbara and her husband have extensive archives at their home in Ottawa: photos, news clippings, and handwritten family trees. Barbara’s husband interviewed Colin’s daughter Julia, who then wrote a note about what she’d heard of our background.
What a game changer! The one page she wrote is so packed with clues. There isn’t much she knew for sure-sure, but several things that her grandfather William told her. That he was born on Islay. That his father William, a merchant tailor, died of ship’s fever upon arrival in Canada and was buried behind the Brockville railyards. Seems his mother Isabella raised the kids on her own. They stayed in Canada but his brother Duncan moved to the States.
At this point, all I know of Islay is single malt whiskey. Before my ancestry research began, I bought a bottle of Laphroaig and registered for pretend-title to a square foot of peat land out by the distillery. I plan to go visit, borrow the promised gum-boots to visit my plot, and enjoy my one free dram.
My 'leasehold' certificate to one square foot at Laphroaig distillery on the Isle of Islay, Scotland.
I look things up based on Julia’s clues. An early census for Elizabethtown (later Brockville) shows a Widow Campbell with varying numbers and genders of children noted over the years. There was a cholera outbreak around the time the family arrived, and the victims were buried unmarked behind the (future) railyard area. Duncan Campbell, a tailor, lived in the same town where William’s son Colin was born, then moved to the States. So the clues are lining up with some findings. But still, very little documentation. No marriage of William and Isabella in Scotland, no birth records for their children ‘over there’, no death records for the parents in Canada.
While trying to follow the trail of Duncan, the first Barbara asked how I’m sure I have the right one. There are many factors that line up, but nothing proven for sure. I retrace my steps.
When I look online at the original of his military card, I notice in tiny handwriting in the margins “from Ardinistle, Islay”. Woo! I look that up. No such place anymore. Google Maps keeps landing me right at the Laphroaig distillery! Turns out from a historic map of Islay, Ardinistle is an early name for the area.
I check the coordinates of my square-foot-plot, and look at Google street-view. Probably 500 yards away, through the brush and across the road. I’m going there anyway, to my little spot in Scotland. Will it be right where my ancestors once lived? So far, I don’t know.
If it’s like a maze my Campbell forebears drew on the beach, one of the paths will lead through – and it’s fun to try.
written by Barbara L Campbell, 2024