Blogging Woeful Wednesday

I've been horrible at posting lately....my apologies! Tis Renaissance Faire season, and I've been very busy vending at Faire.

Then, I injured my back and have been preoccupied by PAIN...

I will post on all my blogs SOON!!

Tombstone Tuesday

Mary Elizabeth (Ferguson) Warren, my maternal gggGrandmother.
She is buried in Warren-Powers Cemetery, Adelphi, Polk, Iowa, where my mother is buried.
Mary's husband is William James Warren.

Wordless Wednesday

My grandmother, Bernice Gazelle (Bullington) Halterman, born in Runnells, Iowa, with her son, Irvin Halterman (aka "Buddy") ca: 1940

Swan, Iowa is near Runnells, Iowa

Well, Now I Know Why I Have Pointy Ears! I Think I'll Move Back to Roan Inish.

My great-great grandmother was a McDuffey. I'll bet she had little pointy ears, too!


My maternal geneology can be traced back to the Isle of Colonsay off the West coast of Scotland. My ancestors were the McPhies--which at one point in time governed the whole island.

The island of Colonsay lies in the Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. Fifteen miles to the north lies the island of Mull; the eastern and southern horizons are bounded by the islands of Jura and Islay; and to the south west, just visible from a high point on a clear day, is the coast of Donegal in Ireland. To the west lies the Atlantic, with only the Du Hirteach lighthouse standing between Colonsay and Canada. Together with its semi-detatched neighbour Oransay, it forms an island group roughly ten miles long and two miles wide.With just over one hundred inhabitants and its nearest neighbouring community almost twenty miles distant, Colonsay constitutes one of the most remote communities in Britain.

Various families have governed Colonsay: the MacDonalds, the McPhies, the McNeills and the Strathconas.

McPhies,McPhee,MacPhee,McD

uffie,MacDuffie (Mc Duffey)---we're all related somehow.


The earliest form of the Macfie surname was Mac Dubhsithe or 'Son of the Dark One of Peace'. The People of Peace was the euphemism used to speak of those that lived under the hill - the Fairy Folk.

The name Macfie is also said to derive from its older version MacDuffie which is itself derived from the Gaelic Mac Dhuibh-Shith meaning 'Son of the Dark Fairy or Elf'. In ancient times, fairies were not the tiny, cute, winged creatures as they are now portrayed. In fact, the word "banshee" means simply 'woman fairy'. This stems from the tradition that the Macfies had been in touch with the fairy folk that lived under the hills and in many countries the remnants of the original bearers of the name have been conferred with mystic powers. In modern Gaelic this name is written as 'Maca'phi'. In 1164 Duibhshith was known to have been 'ferleighinn', or 'reader', at Iona when Malcolm lV was king. Mac means "son of". The "Ph" family was used in the regions of Lochaber, North and South Uist and Mull.

Tradition asserts that the Macfies/MacDuffies are descended from a Selkie or seal woman who cast off her fur to become a beautiful woman and marrying the first Macfie who hid her fur so that she could not return to the sea. Even in a country so steeped in mystery and mysticism as Scotland, you would be very hard pressed to find a clan whose roots are so dark and mysterious.

We are told by Dr. George F. Black in The Surnames of Scotland that the name Macfie is 'one of the oldest and most interesting personal names we possess'. Dr. Gillies adds in Place-names of Argyllshire that 'It is plan and concept go far away beyond those of even our old names'. The MacFies are also said to hail from Kenneth MacAlpine, King of Scots, although there is no recorded early history of this side of the clan. Based on the carvings found on MacFie tombstones the clan was made up of warriors and churchmen, the clan was also Royalist. A Clan presence in Lochaber, Galloway and on several other Hebridean islands is also evident from the earliest times.

The Clan founder could have been Murdoch, son of Fearchar Ruadh, son of Cormac; 1st Bishop of Dunkeld, who was probably a priest of the Celtic Catholic Church in the 12th century. Earle Douglas MacPhee's research points to the clan migrating to the island of Oronsay off the west coast of Scotland around the 10th to 12th centuries. The ancestral home of the Macfies is the island of Colonsay, a small island about 2 miles by 10 miles among the Inner Hebrides, off western Argyllshire. The clan's burial place was the island of Oronsay.

Well. Call it Roan Inish. I'll be there!

McPhie Tartan

Wordless Wednesday

Grace and Glory: Jackson and Mary Phelps Blood

Grace and Glory: Jackson and Mary Phelps Blood

The Blood and Phelps Families

I'm always amazed at finding connections, and this time it really tickles me to find a connection with a fellow blogger and FaceBooker...Becky Jamison. Rather than tell the entire story here, I'll post the link to Becky's Blog: Grace and Glory and you can read it for yourselves. Mind you, read my comments at the end and you will see how our Blood and Phelps' families interconnected.

Even though Becky is not related to the Bloods 'by blood', and neither am I...we both have ancestors who are. My ancestor, who ended up in Runnells, Iowa, was Ada Belle Martin (sister to my great-grandmother, Iva Martin). Ada married Arthur Otis Blood.

To read Becky's story about these families, and our connection, go here:

Grace and Glory http://beckysgraceandglory.blogspot.com/2009/02/jackson-and-mary-phelps-blood.html