Where did we come from?
This map shows where our families were married and started their families.
Almost everyone came from the Central Lowlands except for a few families from Ireland (during the Potato Famine) and the Munros from the Highlands.
Moffat lines in blue; Robertson lines in red
Geology as destiny
Our Lowlands heritage explains why our ancestors stayed put and didn’t emigrate until the 1950s. They were originally farmers and weavers then moved to the big cities of Edinburgh/Leith, Glasgow/Paisley, and Dundee during the Industrial Revolution.
The Central Lowlands had rich arable lands, coal deposits, fast flowing rivers (for mills), deep harbors, and access to international shipping routes.
When the Port of Leith declined in the 1950s the Greenans and the Robertsons moved to England for work opportunities. Some of the Greenans went to London and the Robertsons to Corby, where my dad James Fairlie Moffat worked at Stewart’s and Lloyd’s steelworks.
Hand-Drawn Maps
Below is a map I made of Perthshire showing where my Clark ancestors lived. I studied map-making with Helen Cann, an artist and map-maker in Brighton, England.
The first map shows where six generations of Clarks lived from 1700 -1900.
The second shows the Robertsons in Leith
