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Friday, 28 October 2011

A Tragic Island Tale: Sympathy Saturday


Westing on Unst, Shetland
A  tragic island tale from Scotland.

On Unst, Shetland,  Peter Smith and his wife Mary had five children - three boys and two girls.  The elder two boys, William aged 14  and Francis 10 years old, both died on the same day - 14th March 1919.  

 On checking further,  it was found that they  had both drowned whilst they were trying to rescue their pet dog from a lochan, near their house.  

The third and youngest son is still alive at the grand age of 97, as is his wife.   Sadly their only child died at the age of 8 months.  


A story from my third cousin Stuart who recently visited Shetland
to research his Smith ancestors.

Sympathy Saturday is a blogging prompt from www.Geneabloggers.com
to encourage writers to record their family history

2 comments:

  1. What a terribly sad tale Susan. And then for him to lose his own child as well. There's something "perverse" about them then living to 97. Pauleen (aka cassmob)

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  2. How sad. How good that your cousin was able to find out what happened though. If you are anything like me, a common death date for two children would have bugged me to no end, if I didn't know what happened.

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