••• IN THE BLACK DIASPORA
WE OUGHT TO VISIT
WE OUGHT TO DO
Courtesy of Micheal H. Cottman
MAJESTIC SCOTLAND: TRACING A FAMILY HISTORY OFF THE BEATEN PATH
Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland.
By ALISON LAVIGNE
EDINBURGH, Scotland – Growing up in Washington, DC, I enjoyed browsing through the thick, leather-bound family Bible every time I visited my Aunt Agatha, who is now a feisty 105 years old.
Like most family Bibles, it had the pertinent dates of births, deaths and marriages from long ago with dozens of legible handwritten names presumably from Scotland and Ireland. It even had locks of my ancestor’ s hair slipped between its faded pages. I would marvel at how it had survived intact from hand to hand and family to family through so many generations in the United Kingdom and United States.
Alison Lavigne & Micheal H. Cottman. 32