Betsy McNeill is a true daughter
of Islay. She was born 1915, and brought up on Islay, daughter
of Malcolm McNeill (1864), (/Malcolm/Duncan/Neil), and Marion McKinnon
of Portnahaven,. She left Islay to train as a nurse (RGN, SCN, RMN,
RMPA), at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow. She married her
husband Fred West in 1950 and lived in Fraserburgh until Fred died of
cancer in 1976 . She returned to the island to nurse her brother
Malcolm, at the McNeill family home in 'Kishmul',
Queen Street, Portnahaven until his death in 1992 (It is interesting
that 'Kishmul Castle- on the Isle of Barra, Scotland' is the ancestral home of the McNeills, and
title of folk-song "Kishmul's Galley",
relate to the family home?)
Betsy then moved to
Port Wemyss where she spent her
later years. She had a comprehensive, and with many, a personal
knowledge of the families in the Portnahaven / Port Wemyss villages
and the Rhinns in general. From an early age, she pestered
relatives for details of her family, and had, over the years,
accumulated a wealth of knowledge of her wider family lines back to
Donald McNeill, 1740 and Catherine Shaw, whom he married c1780.
Betsy is a Islay Gaelic speaker
who clearly supported the notion of the difference between that of the
true Islay Gaelic, which evolved from Irish Gaelic, and that of the
northern isles, which has been shaped by the Norse influence.
Many a heated discussion has taken place on this subject on and off
the island.
When I was first introduced to
Betsy in 1996, I was immediately invited into her home in true island
style. Over a cup of tea, and 'something to eat', she hauled out
a supermarket carrier bag full of 'written on the back of' envelopes,
sheets and scraps of paper, containing information received from
related families all over the world. She led me through my
connection with the McNeills and the wider family, sharing what she
had in the true genealogist style. I pulled together her data in
a computer program (which we are still 'making adjustments to') of the
McNeill, McKinnon, Ferguson and McAllister lines, as well as the
inter-marriage between families from the across the Rhinns.
Her
'Photo Album' was created out of photographs, old postcards, paintings
and illustrations, scanned from her collection, which she kept in a
cardboard box. The photographs were taken by family and friends
over the years, along with others donated from far off family members
across the UK and the World.
Betsy died
in the Islay Hospital Bowmore
on the 13th
March 2015 in her 100th year.
In her later years she still
maintained
an unrivalled enthusiasm for 'sharing' her
photographs and information with the steady flow of Islay
descendants who were directed to her
home in Shore Street, Port Wemyss,
When Steve
Gilchrist first suggested the idea of a
web album, I thought she might not be interested. "Why not?", she
said. "Who would be interested in me and my life?" "It's really the
older generations that I'm interested in. When I go, I want to know
who I will be meeting. . . The next generations can record
themselves!"
Betsy
honoured me by bequeathing all her photographs and family papers
which I will add to
‘her database’ and I hope that she will
remain in the thoughts of her wider family.
I have
recorded Betsy's recollections and family records on 'The Master
Genealogist' for these
future generations, and in true
Betsy style, will share them with all and
carry on her tradition her
interested in
our family lines, and the world
our ancestors lived in.
Regards, Iain MacIntosh [email protected]toucansurf.com
4th
October 2015
