Donna,

Many thanks for your comments. I think I have just been incredibly lucky. When I was little, my mother would sit and tell me stories about the Island, of "Themselves", the Buggane, the Glashyn, and above all about people, and whilst I would ask her to tell me Fairytales, as I got older, it was increasingly to ask her to tell me about people, and she told me about the legends that had been handed down over hundreds of years, a family association with Sukie Corrin and the LaMothe family was one. A connection with Milntown was another and one she dismissed as a fairytale, that one of your ancestors wore armour. When I started researching, I wrote down everything I could recall of the stories she told me, but regarded them as entertaining but scarcely likely to have much accuracy. Several years later, the greatest discrepancy was that one marriage was a generation out. We knew there was Scots ancestry, but the only part of Scotland that she said there was some connection with was a family from Galloway. Finally I found it was not from Galloway but a family called Gallowey, (there is a write up ON the Merchant Jeffrey Gallowey in the IOMFHS mag some years back).

I also realised that many of the stories had to come from just one person, a girl called Amy Stevenson, (1683-1750). If the stories she told to her children and grandchildren survived in recognisable form for well over 200 years after she died, it suggests that she had a breathtaking gift with words, and she must have fascinated them, so that they handed on what she said. It was from Amy that the Milntown connection came, for her Grandmama was Issable Christian, a niece of Illiam Dhone. Her grandfather was Major General Richard Stevenson, and his will survives in the Manx Museum, and it says, “I leave my arms and armor, my bow and quiver….”Even the armour was true, and as regards Jeffrey Gallowey, that was Amy as well.

From records in the Manx Museum, she was proud, somewhat quick tempered, though I can forgive her that, as she was uprooted from her home when she was six months pregnant with twins and confronted with a father in law who was an enthusiastic tippler. I think I could forgive any woman who was six months pregnant, and who went ballistic in those circumstances, and Amy sure did. But, and this is the big but, had Amy been abrasive and unpleasant, would her children and grandchildren have the love and affection for her that would make them want to recount her stories to their children and grandchildren.

Somehow, and this had to be the most fantastic luck, sufficient of those stories survived to my mothers day to fascinate her, and she told them to me. A lot of what I have written has been what she told me, and in turn that is what came down from Amy. A good part of my life has been directed towards historical research and writing, and I think I owe my love of those topics to my mother and to Amy herself. Amy died in 1750, but if she could influence the life of someone who was born 200 years after she died, then she was quite a girl. Our second daughter is Alexandra AMY.

There is one other extraordinary detail. I was brought up with Manx folklore stories including the Moddey Dhoo, but it was only comparatively recently that I read Sophia Morrison’s version of the story, and I realised to my surprise that the version my mother told me contained a string of details that do not appear in Sophia’s story. As you will know the story is set in Peel Castle and recounts mythical events sometime around the time of the Civil War. Amy’s father, Captain John Stevenson, was Constable or Guard Commander, of Peel Castle from c1692 up to his death in 1718. If there is one person who would be likely to know the legends of the castle it would be him, and given the differences between the two stories, I have wondered if the story my mother told me was what had been handed down from John Stevenson himself. Sadly there is no way I can prove that, but I suspect it is so.

I just happened to be lucky, and as regards the Barnes, James, Maleys etc, the detailed facts were from the breakthrough you supplied, but the outline story was what my mother told me, so all I did was to add supporting detail to the story that was there in outline.

The next problem I have is to try to find out something about Eddie Barnes himself, as his background is still a mystery.

Best wishes

Robert