Set in Stone

A Welsh Family Story

A short account of an Ardrossan field trip.

One of the golden rules of family history research is to interview and ask questions of all living relatives to find out their knowledge of our ancestors. They will surprise us with the photos and artefacts that they have stored away.

That was the case earlier this year when my wife’s cousin made contact wanting to share a box of his family history. They share the same great grandparents – their grandfather and grandmother were brother and sister.

The box contained memorabilia of his family and their history. My wife’s cousin wanted to encourage me to go further into the Welsh family side of my wife’s family history. This was her maternal grandmother’s family. I had done some research but not enough to write about it.

During the winter months I dug deeper and came up with an interesting post about Williamina Welsh – great aunt Williamina, because her descendants have grown up with a story about her being banished because of her relationship with a Catholic, which in her Protestant family was unacceptable. I was able to prove that this story had no facts to support it. Researching her story helped me to locate and work out the seven children of Martin and Agnes Welsh who were the second generation of Irish immigrants.

The Welsh family and the McKie family have roots in Ardrossan, Saltcoats and Stevenston – otherwise known as the Three Towns because they meld into one area along the Ayrshire coast, although they have their separate identities. Saltcoats and Ardrossan in the 19th century were major coal export ports. Stevenston became synonymous with the Nobel dynamite factory on the Ardeer peninsula.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Ardrossan was a major port on the Firth of Clyde with steamers to the Isle of Man, Ireland and Liverpool. It had a large shipyard where my father-in-law began his apprenticeship and then continued his career as a ship’s engineer in the Merchant Navy throughout the Second World War and beyond.  

It should not be surprising that family history is represented with headstones in cemeteries in these towns. We have found stones relating to my wife’s paternal family, the Nicols, in Stevenson New Street cemetery and last year we spent some time tending and cleaning them.

So, it was not surprising to discover that my wife’s cousin was making annual visits to his grandfather’s headstone to pay his respects. What was a big surprise was that there was another headstone dedicated to the memory of his grandparent’s parents.

Describing all this is a little wordy and complicated so I shall try to explain the generations.

Martin Welsh and Mary McDonnell	First Generation (immigrants from Ireland)
Martin Welsh and Agnes Cunningham	Second generation (my wife’s great grandparents)
Archibald Welsh and Elizabeth Pearson Saunders	Third Generation
Rachel Welsh and Andrew Nicol	Third Generation (my wife’s grandparents)

Both the headstones are in Ardrossan cemetery – a large cemetery with hundreds, if not thousands, of memorials. It would have been nigh on impossible to find the headstones without guidance and so, when we arrived in Ardrossan and found the cemetery, we referred to the notes that I had taken months earlier.

“Ignore first entrance, wee car park, walk to end, take a left, immediate first right, 2/3 along on left – Archie, proceed, then left, 200 yards towards school, junction, on right at end = A A  headstone, behind”

We found the headstones very quickly; the directions were accurate despite the tightly packed rows of memorials.

The first stone was that of Archibald Welsh and his wife Elizabeth, my wife’s cousin’s grandparents.

“In loving memory of Archibald Welsh, died 19th March 1966, aged 60 years, and his wife, Elizabeth, Pearson Saunders Welsh, died 2nd March 1967 aged 60 years”.

The stone is a modern looking slightly abstract shape. On first appearances it looks as though something is missing from the top, closer inspection shows that the granite has been cut in this shape.

 A stone like this confirms the records that have been found online, and the facts are there to see.

We continued with the trail and got a little lost. Retracing our steps and reading my notes, it all made sense. The double A A in my directions was in fact my drawing of two headstones back-to-back. We knew we were in the right place but had to look behind somebody else’s stone to find the one we sought. This second stone is poignant because it is in memory of Martin and Agnes Welsh, my wife’s great grandparents, but it includes the memory of their granddaughter, age two.

 “In memory of Agnes Cunningham beloved wife of Martin Welsh, diet 7th of February 1938, and their granddaughter, Wee Beth, younger daughter of Andrew and Rachel Nichol, died 30th of December 1930, the above Martin Welsh died 3rd of February 1944”.

Wee Beth, who died in 1930 was just two years old. I discovered her death registration entry from Scotland’s People. Her entry looks like it was the last one for that year in the Ardrossan register. Her full name was Elizabeth Tevendale Nicol. She and her older sister, Agnes Cunningham Nicol, lived with their parents in Saltcoats. Beth died of cerebral meningitis, cause unknown.

 I have written about Andrew and Rachel Nicol in a previous post. It is worth noting the Scottish tradition of naming children with the maternal surname to continue the family history through names. Beth Nicol carried the middle name of Tevendale which was her paternal grandmother’s maiden name. Her sister Agnes had the middle name Cunningham, which was her maternal grandmother’s maiden name. In this way maiden names continue down the family tree. This is a practice that is not so common now.

We spent time clearing weeds from the base of both the stones and acknowledged the important finds today.

This was the first time that my wife had seen this headstone of her aunt Beth. It was an important discovery for us that had given us more information about the McKie family history, written in the words of her grandparents, and set in stone.

With so few relatives remaining in 2026, I hope that one day that our descendants will read these stories and try to retrace our footsteps and discover the roots that we have uncovered. Hopefully the directions that I have shared will still be understood.