'O Forrest, Rhynie, Aberdeenshire' sampler (detail)
I love popping into Aberdeen Art Gallery to look at one or two items, rather than attempting to take in the whole huge collection.
Visiting the exhibition of embroidered samplers which is on display in Gallery 3, I noticed a sampler headed “O Forrest, Rhynie, Aberdeenshire”. The label stated “stitching can become damaged over time due to moth grazing or loose threads and the first name of this girl has been lost.”
I’m a genealogist. I went home determined to identify “O Forrest”!
The sampler is dated 1844, and so I checked the 1841 and 1851 censuses, but could not find any Forrests living in Rhynie.
'O Forrest, Rhynie, Aberdeenshire' sampler
A closer look at the sampler revealed another anomaly. There are three rows of numbers and alphabets and then the initials “CS”. Then a further three rows of alphabets and the initials “I or JS and AW” (in the alphabets there is only one letter between “H” and “K” making it impossible to identify the letter as either an “I” or a “J”). Then there are a further three rows of alphabets and the initials WS, AS, I or JS, MS, CS, NS.
If the girl producing the sampler was a Forrest, some of the initials should end with “F”.
I wondered if O… Forrest, Rhynie, 1844 was just the address and not the name.
In 1841 the Smith family lived at Old Forest, Rhynie; James Smith and his wife Agnes Smith, nee Wright. This fitted with the initials JS and AW on line six. They had five children – William, Anne, James, Margaret, and Christina. These names correspond to the first five initials on lines nine and ten. I can’t account for the final “NS”
Age-wise, Christina would seem the most likely to have produced the sampler, and this would also fit with the initials “CS” at the end of line three.
Christina's baptism notice
Parish of Rhynie document
I had found the stitcher; now to find out about her life. Farmer’s daughter Christina Smith was born in 1828 in Rhynie. She married John Cruickshank in 1867, and had two daughters, Jessie and Christina. She died in 1907. Her daughter Christina married Rev. James Morrison of Deskford. The sampler was donated to the Art Gallery in 1987 by Miss M.S. Morrison; Christina Smith’s granddaughter Mabel.
Christina Smith death notice
Reading Between Lines: Embroidered Samplers is on display at Aberdeen Art Gallery until the New Year. Open daily, admission free. For visiting information go to www.aagm.co.uk. Read Alison’s blog about the exhibition at www.womenshistoryscotland.org
