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Greetings from Hawai'i....I am new to the list,
well fairly new-I've been lurking behind the scenes for a few weeks
and have been thoroughly enjoying all the conversation. I am
new to researching my ancestry and am fortunate that my mother pieced together a
great deal up to a point. So I am asking for assistance from anyone
for information about the ancestry of Captain Francis Sinclair. His
father was Sir George Sinclair. I am wanting to learn about my ancestry
from Captain Francis Sinclair back to whenever! Here is a little bit about
the Hawai'i Sinclairs.....
I am the g-g-g granddaughter of Captain Francis
Sinclair (b. ?/?/1797 in Edinburgh) and Elizabeth "Eliza" McHutcheson Sinclair,
(b. 4/26/1800 in Glasgow) who left Scotland in 1839
and settled in Pigeon Bay, New Zealand. Francis and their eldest son,
George, were lost at sea in 1846 on a trip to Wellington. They made many
attempts to find them but found nothing. Eliza was 46 at the time.
They stayed in NZ until the spring of 1863. After purchasing a 300 ton barque
named Bessie, Captain Thomas Gay who was married to Eliza's eldest
daughter, Jean Robertson (b. 3/?/1823 in Stirling), sailed them to
Hawai'i where they purchased the island of Ni'ihau from King Kamehameha in
1864 and some years later purchased a large pie-shaped piece of land (from the
top of the mountain to the shore called an ahupua'a in Hawaiian) on the island
of Kaua'i from the King. Francis and Eliza's daughter, Helen McHutcheson
(b. 5/?/1826 in Stirling), married Charles Barrington Robinson while in
NZ. Their son, Aubrey (my g-grandfather) was born in NZ and married his
first cousin, Alice Gay(born 3/17/1865 on Ni'ihau), daughter of Captain Thomas
& Jean Gay. Aubrey and Alice Robinson had 5 children, Sinclair (they
always pronounced it Sinkler), Selwyn, Alymer, Lester and Eleanor.
Sinclair was my grandfather. To this day, there are many of us who
still live on the piece of land on Kaua'i purchased by Eliza. We grow
sugar on about 7,000 acres and we also have a cattle ranch! The island of
Ni'ihau is presently owned by my cousins Bruce & Keith Robinson. Have
I bored you endlessly? There is so much more to this story but this is it
in a nutshell!
I am very proud of my heritage and thrilled to be
included on this list with so many fine people. You know things happen not
by accident but by Nature, God, Spirit, whatever you choose to call it,
working in wondrous ways. I recently met Jimmy Cosmo, an actor from
Scotland, a star in my favorite movie, Braveheart, who told me of the Sinclair
Clan website which somehow routed me to this discussion list. A week after
meeting Jimmy I was in our local bookstore looking for I can't remember what and
I was literally pulled over to a table with soft cover books where a book stared
at me....no other book did I see....but "Rosslyn, Guardian of the Secrets of the
Holy Grail" by Tim Wallace-Murphy. You know the saying, "When the
student is ready, the teacher appears!" Well, I was ready! I have
completed reading "Rosslyn" and am on to "Rex Deus". I am honored to be on
this list with the likes of Tim, Katherine Kurtz, Malcolm Sinclair, Niven
Sinclair and Ian Sinclair. When I read all of your messages, I
realize how much I don't know about the Sinclairs and the history of Scotland
and about how much I am enjoying this adventure of learning where I come from
and reading all of your stories. What a fascinating group!
I have been in touch with Malcolm, Niven and Ian
Sinclair and while they are consumed with the Clan Gathering this month, they
have been most helpful in pointing me in the direction of where to find more
information. Have any of you ever heard of Captain Francis Sinclair or his
father, Sir George Sinclair? I believe George was from
Prestonpans.
Thank you so much for any assistance you can
offer.
Aloha pumehana,
Katherine A. Weir
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