Yes! I Think I Know Who I Am!Author(s): Caraline W. BingleySource: North Irish Roots, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2007), pp. 40-41Published by: North of Ireland Family History Society (NIFHS)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27697715 .

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YES! I THINK I KNOW WHO I AM!

Mrs Caraline W Bingley nee Waddell A1728

We left our Scottish home about 1589 and probably arrived with James HAMILTON. We were tenants of his initially, but he was known for his inability to get on with

'bonnet lairds'. So we moved inland and made friends with the Lords of Iveagh. They found it difficult to cope with this new idea of land tenure and were often short of ready cash. So playing cards with Alexander, they lost and he held the land until

they had silver. But the Queen decided they must pay her homage, they refused and were driven to the West. We stuck to the land, paid any tax due and when the 'natives' rebelled, we kept mum, while the towns about us were sacked and burnt

and settlers had to flee for their lives.

At first we married the daughters of other Scottish settlers, the NESBITTs and

CAIRNs, but then we find a wedding with a 'friend' of Rory O'MOORE so maybe that is why we escaped unscathed in 1641. The next Alexander's son married a 'Catholic GRAHAM' so his family could not inherit and it went to his second cousin.

Meanwhile King James was getting cross and three sons were only saved from attainment when William of Orange appeared on the horizon. Robert took himself off to London, Hugh, having fought a duel, went off to Boston. And Robert managed to marry an heiress, the daughter of a Sir Coslett STODDARD. After that we found it

was a good idea to marry rich woman, have enormous families and die insolvent.

That was alright, we still had the land, and we married Maitlands, Magills, Ross from

Poravo, Cunninghams, Campbells, St Georges, Calwells, Thompsons, Langtrees, Douglas of Gracehall, Christies of Kirkcassock, Crawfords, Reeves, Batts, and even an Otaway. Then George married a Quaker MURPHY and found she was related to

practically every other Quaker family in Ireland.

And we still had the land when Gladstone introduced Land Reform and all the tenant land was purchased for ?9 an acre. That left only The Estate' which was sold to pay death duties. But it has became a very successful farm and the new owners

are actually 'far off friends'.

Some led interesting lives, like Gilbert who witnessed the Partition of India, James

George who fought with Wellington in Spain, Herbert who was a Botanist, Alexander who dug up 'St Colman's Pillow' in Dromore Cathedral churchyard.

And the ladies had their say. Eliza Jane was governess to the Master of Balliol

College, Oxford and then married a leading light of 'The Oxford Movement for

Religious Reform, her brother's wife was daughter to the President of the Royal Irish Academy,

During the 1798 Rebellion we even had our own Yeomanry, George engineered the Clogher Valley Railway and laid out airfields for the Royal Flying Corp. We

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had a sailing ship named after us. And Captain WADDELL of a Confederate ship broke the rules of neutrality and it cost the British Government ?5,000,000 in

compensation

And what of the other Waddell families - there have been ministers galore, writers like Helen Waddell, missionaries, a daughter who married 'John Jamison' the

whiskey merchant. And of course we were involved in the linen trade, in selling grass seed, limestone cattle and horses and acting a clerk of the course at the Maze Races.

And of course I could go on for ever - it has been a labour of love for the past twenty years. But what do I do with it all now? I have no bairns and and I am 'nigh on 80.

And I want to write another book about who we might be related to - that goes back to a man that died in Finland about the year 600AD.

CORRESPONDENCE

Dear Sir Alexander Robb

As the great-grandson of the late Alexander Robb (1839-1910), living in one of the two houses he built after his return to Dundonald, I read with more than usual interest the article "Journeys and Migrations" (North Irish Roots, Vol. 17, No.2,

2006). Because of the limited store of family records from the colonial era, there is a danger that we try to read too much into the few that survive I suspect that is

what Dr. Harper has done. I believe that taking my grandfather's letters home out of their wider context has done a disservice to his memory.

I think it is unfair to characterise my great-grandfather's stay abroad as a "descent into financial crisis" or to say that "success always eluded him". Indeed his letters

home - which do not hide the difficulties he had to face as a pioneer in the interior of British Columbia - record that in 1871 he was predicting that in two or three

years he would be "out of debt and independent", in 1872 he was "getting his head above water" financially and that in 1873 he had enough money in hand to contemplate wintering in Victoria. Moreover records in the British Columbia Provincial Archives show that in addition to the 160 acres he pre-empted in 1868, he pre-empted another 160 acres in 1872 and in 1875 received a Crown grant of 320 acres. He was later reported to have sold his land and stock for $4,000 cash. Later still, he was appointed the land tax assessor and collector in the Nicola

region. None of these actions is consistent with a man going backwards financially.

My great-grandfather returned to Co Down after 1875 after spending rather more than 11 years in British Columbia. He did so because of the ill-health and death of his brothers, Andrew (d.1874) and Samuel (d.1877), left no one to support his father who was then farming in Dundonald. Because of these deaths when he

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