Many thanks Chris for allowing me the opportunity to include my Sutherland interests on the website and acknowledge the wonderful assistance given to me by other members of this list over the years in piecing together the my Sutherland connections.
My gg grandfather Kenneth Scobie MACKENZIE arrived in Australia with his elder brother Alexander in about 1853 as Victoria's Gold Rush excited the world. Kenneth had been born in probably May 1836 in Georgetown British Guiana [now Guyana] but raised by his childless aunt Elizabeth GAIR [nee SCOBIE] in Tain R & C and his mother's cousin Captain Boyce MACKENZIE in nearby Creich House, Creich. Kenneth's parents Mary Ann SCOBIE and Roderick MACKENZIE were married in Inverkirkaig, Assynt in 1829 but left immediately to return to Roderick's sugar plantation in Demerara.The loss of several children to tropical diseases prompted Mary Ann to send her two boys back to Scotland to be raised by other members of her family.
Mary Ann's parents were Capt Kenneth SCOBIE RM and his wife Elizabeth Henrietta NOBLE whom he met and married in Lisbon. Captain Kenneth initially served in the Reay Fensibles in Northern Ireland alongside other family members and with his father Major John SCOBIE a tacksman of Melness. Major John's wife Barbara MACKAY was a daughter of John MACKAY of Strathy, whilst Major John's parents were Rev William SCOBIE of Assynt and his wife Jane MACKAY, a daughter John MACKAY of Kirtomy. I have found in my research that most if not all of the Scobie's are descendants of Rev William SCOBIE who came to Assynt as a recently ordained minister in 1728 and served there until his death in 1763.
My interest in the family prompted me to develop a website to publish some of my research findings and hopefully establish more connections with what became a very far flung family. It is definitely a "work in progress" :) http://www.tribalpages.com/tribes/judym3
My biggest stumbling block has been trying to find Roderick MACKENZIE's family. His parents were supposed to be Alexander MACKENZIE and Isabella [?] and I know that his father died in 1843 and that there is a Scotsburn, R & C connection there somewhere.Unfortunately Roderick died in 1850 in Guyana. I have no death record for him.
Hampton, Queensland, Australia
