Very interesting comments :: thanks!

I had an old father (1875 -1947) and he died when I was 3. On one hand it makes genealogy nice as I pop right into the Victorians and their meticulous record keeping. On the other hand, I never received a verbal history of his life or his family. Until eighteen months ago, I had no idea "our family centre" was Bride. So now I can finally plan a visit to the Isle of Man, know where to go and what to appreciate!

Last Christmas, I received an Christmas card from a Manx 3rd cousin (a McFee, but that's another long story) and she included a photo of the headstone of my grandparents, Daniel and Elizabeth (nee McFee) Sayle. I was very stunned, knocked back to look at that photo as I had never realized that their memorial existed (or that it would be so "modern"). I'm sure you have a lot of people who've had similar experiences.

An aeon ago, my wife and I toured Highgate Cemetery in London. When we got back to my in-law's and said where we had been, we heard "oh, how morbid." My wife defended by describing how fascinating it had been to see how the Victorians lived and died. I'm sure looking at the Isle of Man's cemeteries also brings a sense of life and death from those old days.

One of my Scottish great grandfathers kept a family stone in his Scottish churchyard that gives an amazing glimpse into his life: nearly half of his 17 children and two wives (consecutive, not parallel) died before him. A 2nd cousin was just telling me the history of the stone, how a few decades went past before he could afford a monument stone to his family...

I envy you being able to do your walking, and even busing, tour of the IOM. The greatest pleasure in the world is to not hear any of the noises of mankind, just the sounds of nature... he waxed poetically... :)