DNA detective’s mission to re-unite MacIntyres
OBAN B&B owner Val Bichener has turned DNA detective to match-make fellow MacIntyres all over the world.
Mrs Bichener, who has managed to trace relatives from as far away as Australia, Canada and Pennsylvania, is co-ordinating a DNA reunion at this year’s World Gathering of MacIntyres, meeting up at Taynuilt’s Highland Games on July 21.
‘It started with me suggesting to organisers could we ask if people had done DNA and could we view it and share it and it all snowballed from there. Because I’ve done the DNA thing already, people are tapping into my experience and I’m happy to help,’ she said.
More than 500 MacIntyres are expected to turn up, including Mrs Bichener, who has set up a DNA Facebook page which now has 328 members and a DNA spread sheet to help clan members declare and trace their ancestry.
‘I’m playing matchmaker. There’s relatives right across the world. I have a massive family. I’ve not found anyone famous or notorious yet but I’m glad I don’t do Christmas cards,’ she said.
More than 110 people so far have added information to the DNA spreadsheet, listing their last known MacIntyre.
‘Some of them will be coming to the gathering at Taynuilt. It’s going to be quite a party. Some of them will be re-connected with lost family thanks to DNA,’ added Mrs Bichener, who is also making time to study for an Open University degree in Classics.
One of her new-found relatives Marion Kelly is coming from the USA and a third-cousin called Gretta MacIntyre from Pennsylvania is also on the gathering’s guest list for this summer.
‘There’s going to be a fullhouse of MacIntyres. The world has got smaller but my family is bigger!’ she added.
Mrs Bichener was just 12 when a comment by her grandfather planted the seed of looking back at her own family tree.
‘He said there were three centuries spanning him and his grandfather and I thought ‘wow’ but I was in my early 20s when I started digging for real. I’m a tenacicous terrier. I won’t let go once I start something,’ she said.
Her search started in Edinburgh, sifting through reels of reference film, looking for baptisms with names that matched locally and writing everything down on sheets upon sheets of paper. But she hit a sticking point and it was only in 2015 when ancestry went on sale in the UK that her search took off again.
Her family tree now takes her back to 1770 when Archibald and Christina McIntyre married at Glenorchy, going on to have eight children. Records suggest Archibald had links to the famous Cladich Garter. The village of Cladich on Loch Awe was said to be home to a colony of weavers and almost all of them were MacIntyres who were well-known for their garter, mostly made in red and white and greatly prized by pipers.
Anyone wanting to find out more about the MacIntyres’ gathering and other events planned for their visit to the Oban area in July should go to macintyregathering.com