Hame and Hearth: Scottish Family Research Service

24/12/2025

Wishing Everyone a lovely festive holiday.

Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, I will be taking part in Project 71.
Check out their website for the reasons behind the project and their interactive map showing where folk are volunteering :)

I'll be placing led tealights around some Banffshire sites:-

Commonwealth War Graves at St Brandon's, Inverboyndie.
The Boyndie War Memorial at Whitehills.
The RAF Banff Memorial just off the A98 Banff -Portsoy Road.

All the tealights will tidied up and removed prior to the New Year.

17/12/2025

Still struggling for last minute gift ideas for the local historian in your life?
I'd like to recommend a copy of "The Christian Watt Papers" by Christian Watt & historian, David Fraser. This was first published in 1983 and Eland produced another edition in 2023, subtitled "Memoirs of a Fraserburgh Fishwife". https://www.travelbooks.co.uk/shop-online-books/christianwattpapers
The memoir tells the life of Christian Watt, born in 1833, a wonderful, no-nonsense woman. She tells of her life as a domestic service, a lady's maid and then as a fishwife. The first hand account of day to day life is fascinating! Christian's description of the handfasting tradition amongst fisherfolk of the North East, is the best that I have ever read. David Fraser also gives background and details of her story. This is a absolute gem of a book.
Several of the previous edition as available in print, e-book and also free on the Internet Archive - https://archive.org/details/christianwattpap0000watt

With a new afterword from Mary Miers Caught between these covers is the authentic, forthright voice of Christian Watt, servant girl, lady’s maid and fishwife. Born in 1833, her working life began in domestic service before the age of nine and ended with her selling her husband’s catch from door ...

11/12/2025

Here is the latest coverage of Project 71

Operation Candlelight 2025
We have a few dark areas of the UK that are not yet being lit up and I'm reaching out to see if anyone can help.
Norfolk, there are 538 graves in Norwich alone and others throughout Norfolk.
Peterborough, Lincoln and basically all of Lincolnshire.
Kent, has many cemeteries
If you have any friends or relatives in those areas can you please see if they can help.
To find out where the cemeteries are go to the CWGC web site, type in your town and then Search in Cemeteries and memorials on the drop down menu. Thank you

11/12/2025

Has anyone been following Project 71? It sounds a lovely idea to commemorate the Commonwealth War Graves over the festive holiday. To honour the fallen by placing electronic night lights on Commonwealth War Graves across the UK. These small lights will shine throughout Christmas week, a gentle reminder of sacrifice and remembrance.

Have a look at their Facebook link if you are interested in taking part. It would be lovely to see more coverage. I'm going to volunteer to put tealights at three sites as I visit family and friend over the holidays:-

St Brandon's, Inverboyndie
War Memorial Boyndie
and
Memorial RAF Banff