Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 1 on 5/3/2002.

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Ancestral home

There is a saying in Scotland that it costs you nothing to find out who your ancestors are, but it costs a fortune to keep it quiet. That may be true, but Scotland is a small country with under five million inhabitants and if there are any skeletons in the closet, the likelihood is everybody already knows about them.

It was my father who researched the Martine family tree during his retirement. His findings provided a fascinating read in a mundane kind of way. For example, some Martines share a Bolton graveyard with Robert Burns’s mother, brother and sister, but that is as far as the association goes, so far as I know.

For anybody who mistakenly thought the Martines were French aristocrats, there are generations of East Lothian blacksmiths, tanners, brewers and doctors stretching back into the 14th century to dispel the illusion. But what it provides me with is a sense of belonging to somewhere special, despite the old family home in Haddington having become the local police station.

The one thing about being born into a small town community or rural family in the south-east of Scotland is you invariably married locally. You were buried there too. Nobody ever travelled far from home in the days before Britain acquired its Colonies and it became both fashionable and necessary to do so.

Highlanders and West-Coasters were more adventurous, either by choice or demand – but where would Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USAbe today without them? It is estimated over 27 mil.....

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By Roddy Martine

Section : Roddy Martine's World

Page number : 7