Blog
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A Leslie “By Any Other Name”
One of the Foundation’s directors sent me a link to a blog posting on Leslie history. I thought the information would be of interest to Leslies, so here is the link to the blog. The Leslies: Just one Duke of Rothes but many generals in Scotland, Russia and Austria by Jonathan Spangler posted June 23,…
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The Fetternear Banner
Recently, the Foundation has been doing some research on Fetternear the Bishop’s Palace and the Leslie connection in Aberdeenshire. This article on the Fetternear Banner was located online and helps fill in some of the Leslie history related to the Leslies of Wardhill Estate. The article published in St Moluag’s Coracle, a Scottish Catholic magazine,…
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Searching for Scottish Roots
The Leslie Global Diaspora Foundation is an active member of the Council of Scottish Clans and Associations (COSCA) with Lewis Johnson serving as the Southeast Regional Commissioner. At highland games, COSCA provides a service to the public by helping individuals who are exploring their possible Scottish roots and to answer clan-related questions. At the Virginia…
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Discovered Documents
Leslies of Among the hundreds of pages scanned and archived at the Wardhill Estate, we found a book of special interest to Leslies of Australia and New Zealand (Antipodes). The book “Leslies In the Antipodes” was written in 1998 by Jillian A. Burcher. The book was self-published and includes information about the Leslies of Warthill,…
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The 2025 Leslie Heritage Tour
Tuesday Evening The tour began on Tuesday evening with a “meet and greet” and dinner with anyone who wished to go to the pub near the host hotel. Wednesday At 9 am, the 12 members of the tour group departed Edinburgh on the bus with Amy Tomlins, the tour consultant, and traveled north to Dunkeld.…
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Genealogy in Ireland: Townlands
As you may know, the Leslie Global Diaspora Foundation has been researching the families of Leslie in Ireland. We have done research in the Public Records office of Northern Ireland in Belfast and the National Library in Dublin. Both locations have a substantial amount of information, and it is likely to take several more weeks…
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The Scottish Diaspora: Reflections
It has been a few weeks since the course on the Scottish Diaspora ended. The last online discussion was a time for students to offer suggestions and reflections on what we have learned. I would recommend this course to any person who is interested in how the economic, social, and political history of Scotland shaped…
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Week 11: The Homecoming Migrant
The course on the Scottish Diaspora has ended. There will be one more post. For some people who ventured overseas from Scotland, the move was not permanent. About a third of the Scots who emigrated around 1900 returned to Scotland. For some people who went to distant lands based on reports of good farmland, plentiful…
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Week 10: Interwar Exodus
While this is a belated blog entry, the time period between WWI and WWII was a very significant time in the history of the Scottish Diaspora. In WWI, New Zealand lost 17,000 men. Australia lost over 60,000 men with another 150,000 wounded. Lastly, Canada lost over 60,000 men during the war. The loss of men…
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Scot Emigrant Terminology
The terminology used to identify groups who emigrated from Scotland to the colonies in the 1700s and 1800s by authors can be confusing and at times misleading. In this short essay, the terminology used will be presented and discussed. Emigration is defined as the process of leaving one’s country and relocating to another country to…
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Ulster American Folk Park
As an add-on to the Emigration Experiences blog posting, there is a unique opportunity to experience what it was like to emigrate from Ireland to America as so many of our ancestors did. At the Ulster American Folk Park the visitor can see reproductions of Irish homes of the 18th and 19th century and learn…
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Week 8: Emigration Experiences
This week in the course the topic was emigration experiences of Scottish emigrants going to Canada, the USA, and to Australia and New Zealand. Leaving home was not for the weak of heart. The experience began with sadly saying goodbye to family and friends, and watching the land disappear on the horizon. In the early…
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The Battle of Guilford Courthouse and Alexander Leslie
On Saturday March 15, 2025, a group of Revolutionary War reenactors took to the field and marked the anniversary of the Battle of Guilford Court House in Greensboro, NC. The events of the day start with tour of both the British and Patriot Militia and Continental Army encampments near the Guilford National Military Park. This…
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Week 6: Emigration Recruitment
The people of Scotland have been the subject of recruitment ventures since the first effort to populate Ulster, Ireland with English and Scottish peoples in the 1540s, before the time of the Plantation. Later, in about 1609, English were given land in what is now Ulster with the intention of populating the land with Protestants.…