An 83-year-old has made an emotional visit to a Moray museum before it closes possible for the final time to find out if he is related to its founders.
The Falconer Museum in Forres is due to shut this week for winter.
However, talks are due to be held tomorrow within council chambers about whether the attraction will open again in the spring. The council wants to pass it to another group, or shut it to save £80,000.
After learning of the museum’s plight in the Press and Journal, Gordon Ferguson rushed to the museum to find out whether its founders, brothers Hugh and Alexander Falconer, hold clues to unlock more generations of his own family tree.
Research done by the Kingussie resident, whose late mother’s maiden name was Falconer, stretching back to the early 1800s has already found that both lineages share the names Hugh, Alexander and James repeating down the generations.
Mr Ferguson fears that vital clues to his ancestors, who lived on a farm near Forres, may have been lost without getting the chance to study artefacts and letters written by the Falconer brothers.
He said: “I didn’t even know this place existed until I read about it in the Press and Journal – but at the same time I heard it might be shutting down so I knew I had to get here quickly.
“It’s quite emotional to come to a place that my forefathers might have had some hand in or helped set up.
“My brother Donald and I are the last of our family going. It would be nice to know how we fit in with the rest of the Falconer family.”
Hugh Falconer, who was born in 1808, was a distinguished geologist and botanist who was considered a contemporary of Charles Darwin. Little is known of his elder brother Alexander Falconer who made his fortune as a merchant in India. Upon his death in 1856 he left a £1,000 bequest to establish a museum, library and lecture room in his hometown Forres.
The Falconer Museum first opened in 1871, six years after the death of Hugh Falconer, but could now shut its doors for the last time after budget cuts from Moray Council last year proposed either closing it or passing it to a community-run trust.
