Donald Hugh Maxwell Reekie - his Family History Page

   Hugh Reekie lives with his wife Frances in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. In addition to seeing quite a bit of not only his daughter Megan, but also his wife's family, he retains strong links with his own greater family, most of whom live in the United Kingdom. It is curious to note that three of his four grandparents were born in UK cities, the children of "incomers" - those who moved from rural farms into the cities of Manchester or London, England in the 1860s - 1870s.

   Hugh's mother Joyce's family are Welsh; Joyce's father Daniel Jenkin was one of a family born as Welsh-speaking Cockney immigrants in the east end of London; after some years as a farmer/drover their parents had moved from a hill farm at Blaen Pennal, in the beautiful Aeron valley in Central Wales to set up a city dairy in London; in this way they prospered, helping to feed the immigrant families moving into that industrial area, many of whom were from Norfolk. Catherine Jones was from a merchant marine family in Aberaeron. Daniel Jenkin married Elsie Leonora Edwards, a very beautiful lass from Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales, whom he met while he was studying for the ministry; he was appointed minister in the Calvinistic Methodist Church in Upper Bangor, Gwynedd, North Wales, then at South Shields, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, Higher Broughton (Salford near Manchester) and finally at Aston Tirrold, near the Oxfordshire/Berkshire boundary.

   Hugh's father Charles' family are for the most part Scottish: Charles' father William Maxwell, a cotton industrialist, was born of parents both determined to improve their circumstance by moving to Manchester, Lancashire as teenagers: John Reekie left an Auchtertool, Fife farm and Mary Ann Maxwell came from Closeburn, near Thornhill, Dumfries-shire. John Reekie's parents were William (I have a big family tree for him, going back to 1677 on one line), who married Grace Curror in 1830 in Dunfermline Cathedral. Grace's mother was Girzel (Grace) Young, who was a member of the Young familiy of Saddlers in Dunfermline (see the year 1628 entry). I have an expanded tree for the known forebears & siblings of Andrew Reekie & Janet Watt, md Auchtertool Fife 5 Dec 1794.

   William Maxwell's wife Nellie Patterson had both English and Scots parents: David Robert Patterson was born in Hoddam (Ecclefechan), just up the Nith valley from Dumfries. His father, Charles Paterson, was the church minister in Ecclefechan, whose wife (Jean Johnstone) is buried in Cummertrees churchyard with the rest of her family. David Robert greatly assisted in the development of the Equitable Life Assurance Company in Manchester; his wife Mary Ann Hoult, the daughter of a Wymeswold, Leicestershire, farmer, moved to Manchester in her teens, and trained as a nurse in London; the family had previously lived near Ockbrook, Derbyshire. William Maxwell's parents were John Reekie and Mary Ann Maxwell, whose father - another William Maxwell (md Elizabeth Bennoch, in Closeburn, Dumfries-shire) was a Civil Engineer: he designed farms in Ireland, and lived at Ballinasloe for a while. See also Maxwell-Bennoch. He was given a drawing instrument box, with an inscribed cover: Presented to Mr William Maxwell CE by John Algie Esqr as a mark of esteem and approbation Lisduff House, 1st May 1858.The box was made by Yeats & Son, Dublin.