Randy Seaver at Genea Musings challenges the genealogy online crowd every Saturday Night to some Genealogy Fun.
The challenge this week:
1. Pick a place that you have ancestry, but don’t know much about.
I picked Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, birthplace of my paternal grandmother, Elizabeth WILSON (b. 1884 Peterhead), daughter of Martin Watson WILSON and Margaret Metcalf ROBERTSON.
2. Go to Google (or your favorite search engine) and put in the place name, the state name, and the words “genealogy” and “society.” For example my search string is going to be [mccook nebraska genealogy society]. Don’t use mine – use your own!
I did this but the searches all led to very general listings and I wasn’t learning anything specifically about our WILSONs in Peterhead….thus I dropped the “genealogy society” part from the search and instead put in “cemeteries”.
3. Go to the web site that looks the most interesting or promising, and search for data about your ancestor(s) that lived there.
That produced quite a few hits including google maps and tourist pages of Peterhead, the Wikipedia info….and a link to the Scotland BDM Exchange.
From Wikipedia I learned that:
Peterhead is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is Aberdeenshire’s largest settlement, having a population of 19,000 at the 2001 Census. Peterhead sits at the easternmost point in mainland Scotland. Peterhead is often referred to as ‘The Blue Toon’ and people who were born there as Blue Tooners. More correctly they are called Bloomogganners, supposedly from the blue worsted stockings that the fishermen originally wore.
Blue Tooners! My Grandmother was a Blue Tooner!
And a “Bloomogganner!” (what a great word!) I wonder if my ancestors wore blue worsted stockings? Were they fisherman?
4. Did you find anything new or interesting? If so – those are your genealogy Easter Eggs! Enjoy them – browse some more! If not, try again with another place name.
On the Scotland BDM Exchange I scored a match to several WILSONS and other related surnames; not specifically ours but with Peterhead’s population of only 19,000 and a street named “WILSON Street”, I bet there is a connection! I emailed the contact on the other WILSONs. Perhaps I will hear soon if there is a connection we can pursue further.
AND….I’ll definitely have to find out more about Blue Tooners!
Thanks Randy for your Saturday night fun!