Lesley Dawson contacted me from New Zealand in August 2015, sharing some wonderful ancestry about her family, the Coats family of Blantyre who married into the Scott family. Lesley shared this amazing story and document, carefully researched, it is attached here.

1833 Silver teapot of Margaret Coats (Old Place)

I especially liked this photo. The Scott silver scroll teapot, 1833 believed to have belonged to Margaret Coats Scott (born in Old Place, High Blantyre) and brought to New Zealand when she emigrated in 1858. Janet Marr Scott had it in her possession and gave it to Emily Bridget Chapman Scott when she was married in 1907. Emily used it for special visitors. It was then passed to Stella Scott who used it a lot. She gave it to Ellen Scott Skelton as she felt it shouldn’t leave the Scott family. It was then passed to Robin Skelton Prowse with Ellen’s wish that it go to Deborah Prowse Ossenkamp because they share the same birth date.

To think that when a Blantyre family emigrated, they took their prize possessions with them, and this is still now so lovingly cared for 182 years later!

SCOTT ANCESTRY by Lesley Dawson

On social media:

Nick Rice I have a similar story myself. I was adopted shortly after I was born and never got to meet my mother as sadly she had died by the time I traced her. My mother was Margaret Ross McWilliam and she grew up in Blantyre. I have however managed to contact many of my biological family. One of which is Leila Smart nee McWilliam. She is the daughter of James Fleming McWilliam who was born in Blantyre and who has been mentioned on this page before. His mother was Annie Hunter Frame who married John McWilliam in 1903. They where my great grandparents and they lived at Sandyknowe Kerr Street. This building is now known simply as 7 Kerr Street. A few years ago I met Leila and her husband in North Yorkshire and we all stayed the night in a hotel in the area. At breakfast next day Leila gave me a bag and said it contained a tea set which had belonged to Annie McWilliam and that she had cherished it. It was used every Sunday and I can envisage all the family sat in the front parlour. This tea set is the only item I possess which actually belonged to my original family so I regard it as very special.
Elizabeth Dobson Grieve There’s quite a few of the family buried in High Blantyre
Margaret Nimmo Lehmann I have my Grampa James silver teapot Paul, it’s probably only from the early 1900s, a wedding gift, you’d be surprised how much of Scotland is in Canada.