On the hunt for traces of the Lawrie family history — Jim's mom's maternal side of the family tree, whose roots have been traced back to Banff from the mid 1600's! Amazing! Thanks to excellent research done by nephew Chris, we had a lot of info to refer to . . . the Lawries were weavers in Banff, until about 1750 when they moved to Fortrie and elsewhere in Aberdeenshire; a daughter in the 1800's married a Lothian and lived at Alva near Stirling. Our accommodation being just a few kms from Banff and Fortrie, we were soon following road signs leading us to Fortrie. There's no village there, but a "smiddy" (blacksmith shop) and a few farms with nice old stone houses and barns are present. The countryside is pretty with hills, treed areas, sheep and cattle grazing, various crops (wheat, hay, canola, potatoes), and the Deveron River flowing through. A friendly local lady, who was pushing a child in a stroller along the road, suggested that we check out the nearby country church, Inverkeithney; we found it picturesquely situated along a shady lane, beside a farm and a sheep pasture. The graveyard surrounding the church has many old markers, but none visible with the surnames we sought.
Next, we proceeded to Banff, a town of 4,000 sitting on the coast where the Deveron River enters the Moray Firth. Remains of an ancient castle wall and many old buildings constructed of black stone made for an interesting stroll. Unfortunately, the museum is presently closed for renovations, but luckily a stop at the local library and assistance from the friendly librarians was a treasure trove of information about the history of Banff (including "The Annals of Banff" that records incidents such as "1653 — William Lowrie fined 10 pounds for blooding ilk with James Ardes, i.e. fighting to effusion of blood" and a few more Lawrie transgressions; these have also been outlined by Chris in his family history book). We were thrilled to also find, in the library, an annotated listing of gravestones in the old, old cemetery next to the harbour — woohoo, the Lowrie name appeared (variation of spelling)! We made a beeline there and, following the graveyard map, easily found the one Lowrie headstone. It's a very old one and much weathered, so would have been impossible to find, let alone decipher, without the info from the library, which had documented the headstone in the 1800s as reading: "This stone is erected by James Lowrie, shoemaker in Banff, to the memory of John Lowrie and Janet _____, his father and mother, and John Lowrie, his son, who died October 1755? aged . . . " Not a direct forebear, but certainly must have been a close relative to Jim's great-great-great-great-greatgrandfather who also lived in Banff in that same time period!
A block from the graveyard, along the shore, we spotted "The Ship Inn" and stopped in there to drink a toast to the Lawries in the pub which has been operating since the 1700's and, no doubt, they also frequented.
We finished the day by getting groceries, looking around the cemetery in MacDuff (town immediately right beside Banff; no relevant names found), going home for supper, then back to MacDuff in the evening to the library there (lots of interesting reference materials but no "new" information that we found).
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