An Aberdeenshire woman has written a book detailing her recently discovered secret family history.
When Christine Wilkie discovered a lot of her family were from Barbados, she was intrigued.
After her mum suffered several strokes before dying in 2008, Mrs Wilkie decided she wanted to find out more.
She and her husband, David, who live near Oldmeldrum, decided to go travelling to revisit some of her Guyana roots where she was born.
It was not until a few years later they discovered her family’s surprising links to slavery.
Mystery surrounding great-great-grandfather
In 2014, the couple visited the West Indies where her grandfather was a Canon in Guyana and St Vincent where her great-grandfather was an Archdeacon.
However, the mystery began when they asked about her great-great grandfather, a reported bishop, Joseph Turpin.
When asking around, no one had heard of him. After following a few false leads, an expert from the Barbados Genealogy Group, Sandra Taitt-Eaddy, got in touch.
She and a retired professor at the University of West Indies, Sir Woodville Marshall, told Mrs Wilkie about a different Joseph Turpin.
She said: “He had a Joseph Turpin there who was an enslaved carpenter who had inherited money from a murdered slave owner.
“It started to get really interesting.”
Family might not have been pleased with link to former slave
The slave owner of 17-year-old Joseph Turpin had promised to give some money to a group of favoured servants.
Mrs Wilkie said: “He then said he would only leave the money once he died so they cut his throat.
“They ended up executed and their heads were put on poles and all sorts of gory details.”
Mr Turpin, not part of the fugitive group, came into an inheritance from the murdered slave owner.
He along with his brother and several others used his inheritance to set up one of the country’s first free villages.
The 79-year-old discovered this while the Black Lives Matter movement was “coming to the fore”.
Proud of her ancestor, she added: “I was really intrigued. I’m very anti-racist but my family were quite unconsciously racist.
“I thought I’m not going to be ashamed of this I’m proud of this. Whereas mum would never have told us (if she knew).
“I don’t know how pleased she would be when she found out he was a slave.”
Discovery of family history turned into a book
Mrs Wilkie has since written a book detailing her “interesting” family history called From Barbados to Banffshire.
Money raised from selling the book will go towards Stroke Association in memory of her mum.
She is also selling a book of poetry by her late son David A. E. Murdoch, on Amazon. He committed suicide in 2008.
From Banffshire to Barbados can be purchased as an e-book on Amazon or if you are interested in a printed copy, e-mail Mrs Wilkie direct on caf43wilkie@icloud.com
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