Junkie Sinclair Cousins all,
I recall talking genealogy with a customer in our bookshop about two years
ago - shortly after we had discovered to our (pleasant!) surprise that
there was a Scottish family connection.
The conversation naturally drifted into details of family name, and
the customer had married a Sinclair (to the best of my recollection).
Now in those early days of genealogy for me, I was ignorant of the
extremely strong connection between the Sinclair and St.Clair (mine)
variations of the name, and did not retain the customer's name nor contact
details (and we sold the shop shortly thereafter), but during the exchange
she mentioned that she had recently been shown around a Sinclair "House" on
the banks of the Caledonian Canal in or very near Inverness.
The reason we started speaking about this canal was that as a young
hitchhiker in 1979, I had "fallen in Loch Ness"! Actually, it was the
Caledonian Canal, but I tend to embroider the tale somewhat when trying to
impress the lassies. (I get their immediate attention!)
I took up the kind offer of a scout pack to utilize their canoes to get
from one side of the canal to the other - problem was that I left my
backpack on, and with such a high centre of gravity.... sperlash!
My lasting bad memory of this event is not the threat of Nessie, nor the
fact that my passport and important documents were in my money belt, but
the fact that as I was floundering around in the middle, the scout master
yelled out "You know our Champion Scottish swimmer drowned there in the
1930's" !
That was my introduction to Scottish humour methinks, but my question to
the list is this: is anyone aware of such a family home?
Cheers,
Ian Newman
Champion "tread-waterer" extraordinaire