The Dream of Standing in the Homelands of My Ancestors

The Dream of Standing in the Homelands of My Ancestors
(And the Reality)

By Todd Neel

I began this chapter before this trip to Europe with just a title and a dream (sort of a “dream of a dream”, because it was a day dream, wanting to be inspired by a visit in the night from some ancestral ghosts that never came). Some of this chapter was also written during the trip to Europe, and now I finish it back home in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, about a week after our return. So this is kind of a “Back to the Future”/”Back from the Past” journey.

Flash back: Here, now, I sit about 1:45 am, Saturday 7/10/2010 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the homeland of my ancestors. I push a button on my Timex digital wristwatch, and I can see that it is 5:45 pm, Friday 7/9/2010 in our home town of Coeur d’Alene where we will be by 2 pm this afternoon, crossing 9 time zones to get there, flying about 10 hours in the air.

We are up early this morning to catch our flight home to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, after 3 weeks of “holiday” in Europe. This family vacation, that I had previously never before dreamed of as possible for me, is from the gracious generosity of my wife, Mary, and her decision to take our family to Europe on vacation with her inheritance from her parents. It was about a year ago, on July 11, 2009 (one year from tomorrow), that her mother, Phyllis, died. It has been from Mary’s parents’ choices in careers, investments, and lifestyle choices which has allowed us to live for three weeks like royalty in Europe! What a blessing this has been!

I choose the word “royalty” with a small “r” for a reason, as we have enjoyed four nights here at the Princes Street Suites here in Edinburgh. We are literally across the railroad tracks from the Queens’ Palace and the Scottish Parliament at the end of the Royal Mile, which runs from the Edinburgh Castle to the Holyrood Palace. There have been many be-headings of Royalty throughout history that we have heard about on our trip, and I don’t want to be a part of any of that Royalty.

Flash forward: Here, now, I sit about 6:45 am, Saturday 7/17/2010 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Back home again.

Reflections: Part of this trip has been a pilgrimage for me. This pilgrimage has been a search in Scotland, the homeland of my ancestors, for traces, for some record, some sign of my ancestors that came before me. (My questions: Who were they? What were their lives like? What caused them to leave Scotland in the 1700’s? What did they dream about? Were they good people?)

This trip and the record of it is sort of a legacy that I will leave behind for family and friends on this Internet Blog and my self-published book “Family Hunger”. (Will my descendants come looking for traces of me someday? Will they find these words? Will they have an interest, a “family hunger”?) These words you are reading are evidence of my physical body, which has traces of our ancestors. The DNA from my ancestors that I carry through to the present day is in my body, in these fingers that type on this keyboard, in the neurons of my brain that play with these words. We are living legacies. We are miracles!

Will my descendants have questions someday, like: Who was this guy? What was his life like? What caused him to go to Scotland in 2010? What did he dream about? Was he a good guy?

Now, in case you didn’t know this about me, I’m kind of pre-occupied with our family’s genealogy. I was hoping that while in Scotland I would have found the gemstone of information that would be the key to my search to where I came from. But, alas, no gemstone. In Edinburgh, I did visit the Calton Cemetary right next to our hotel, and I did find the gravestone for John William Neill (an architect, d.o.b. 7/22/1781, and d.o.d. 1/28/1827) and other members of his family. But is this my family?

Now, this next paragraph may be “TMI” or “too much information” for those not interested in genealogy, so you can skip to the end if you wish: I did find the location of the national Scotland Registry of families (also known as and available over the Internet as ScotlandsPeople Centre), and I visited it. I found on their computers the same document that I had already found on the Internet through ancestry.com That is a scanned, digital copy of a parish record of John Neil, immigrant from Scotland: d.o.b. Dec. 8, 1716 from Kilwinning, Ayrshire, Scotland, and his parents John Neil and Margaret Johnstoun. (The staff at Scotlands People told me they have the original document, but they would not let me see it because of the age and the condition of that document). But is this my family?

On the last day of our stay in Edinburgh, I found The Scottish Genealogy Society Family History Center and Library, but it was closed! (I have been communicating with them by e-mail since we returned home).

I have submitted my own DNA sample and through ancestry.com and I found 1 genetic relative in Ireland, 3 genetic relatives in Scotland, and 11 genetic relatives in England. Some of these people have responded over the Internet, but I have not been able to meet any of them face-to-face yet.

So, I think you have read about my dream here (I did stand in the home land of my ancestors), and I have come to appreciate some of the hardships they may have gone through and the blessings of the beauty of their homeland as I walked the streets of Edinburgh, toured the Highlands by bus, and soaked up some of the history of Scotland and the United Kingdom. But the reality is that I did not get any real "hits", in genealogy terms. Not yet anyway. (I do believe in miracles!)