Elna, I'm not directly related to your BOYDs, but we have relatives-in-common. My gtgdmother Helen DUFF had a dau Jane DUFF who married William Abercromby BOYD in 1889 in Edinburgh. William Abercromby BOYD (s/o William BOYD & Ann KELMAN) is a cousin of your Robert; family of one son (who died infancy) and five girls, and then emigrated. Jane DUFF died in 1923; her husband married Mary A HENDERSON and they had a son James Henderson BOYD who was an eccentric but acclaimed artist, scupltor and printmaker in Ottawa.

Alan, we've corresponded briefly before - over ten years ago! Didn't realise you were in with the BOYDs.

I've often wondered just exactly how close my DUFF/WATSONs and the BOYDs were. They have adjacent gravestones in Banff Cemetery. Yet the Gardenhead BOYDs owned two lairs in Cullen - last interment was 1992.

I've also wondered how close the Gardenhead contingent were with my blacksmith WATSONs in Portsoy. There are hints in the census that the two families knew each other well. And one line tenanted the same farm, at Standingmanhill (aka Birkenhill), as my GEDDESes in Fordyce.

Howard Geddes