November 2009 - Latest News on the website covering the history of the Mutch family name in North East Scotland.

Hector William Mutch, Queensland, Australia

Are you related to him through family line P8? If so then Margaret Briggs would like to have contact with you. She has a box of family photos and is trying to make contact with any descendants of George Mutch & Margaret Hector.

She wrote:

I have been given a large box of photo’s which may have belonged to Hector William Mutch son of George & Margaret Mutch nee Hector. Most of the photos have no names on them. These were passed on to me by a Heather O’Sullivan nee Mutch who answered an add in the local paper who had these albums and wanted to pass them on to a Mutch as he was not one.

The contact emails I had for this family line appear to be out of date, so if you are interested please contact me and I will put you in contact with Margaret.

Mutches in Orkney

I have often wondered about the Mutches who appear in Orkney in the mid 1800’s only to disappear totally again by the beginning of the 1900’s. But a drop of good malt whisky can fix most things!

Nick Carter contacted me with further information on the family of A25, Alexander & Elisabeth Bowers/Bouys/Boyes. This just happened to coincide with a planned trip I was making to Orkney to visit the Highland Park & Scapa distilleries. With a spare hour spent in the local archives in Kirkwall library I was able to check out the census records in more detail.

It appears that Alexander & Elizabeth, together with their sons William & George, moved north to take on a farm in Orkney. William later took over the farm while George became a blacksmith. I couldn’t find any record of a purchase, so I can only imagine things didn’t work out and eventually the remaining family members moved south again. A couple of the daughters may have stayed on and married into local families.

You can check the details under family line A25.

Terence Mikal Mutch

Terence recently contacted the website but the email address he gave doesn’t work. It is very frustrating when this happens as I have no way to reply. If anyone knows Terence ask him to resubmit his email please.

Catholic Parish Records

GRO recently announced that some records from Catholic parish records were available on their ScotlandsPeople website. The records are not as complete or as full as some of the normal Old Parish records, but are none the less another valuable source of information. You should be aware that the Catholic parishes have different names and boundaries than the official ones used in OPR.

As you will see below a search of the CPR birth & baptism records already available has led to three new family lines plus a new son for one of the others.

Updates and new Family Lines

Things have been quieter as I was on holiday most of August but since then the following updates have been made:

  • Small updates made to A8, J71 & R9.

  • Ellen Sutherland provided a lot of new information on her relationship to J94, John & Christian Duncan.

  • New information on A25 from Nick Carter (see above).

  • Details of two of Peter Lang Mutch’s children [P6] found in CPR.

  • New family line A48. I came across the family of Alexander & Jean Beattie in IGI. Can’t think how I missed this one before?

  • New son of G13 found on the CPR.

  • New line J97 James & Agnes Begg added after I found them in the CPR.

  • New line G24 George & Elspeth Farguson added after I found them in the CPR.

  • New line W36 William & Margaret Connel added after I found them in the CPR.

Database status - We currently have details of 1,429 Mutches and 519 spouses.