***

For John McKinley Girvan

And

Gloria Elise Girvan Akin

Emigration: Global Distribution

***

Facts for the Caribbean branch of Girvans:

-Two brothers, Thomas  Girvan (1796-1841), John  Girvan (1798-1878) emigrated to Jamaica from the South Ayrshire region of Scotland in 1825. They purchased properties in Jamaica and passed their stories on through their descendants.

-John McKinley Girvan researched the lives of his ancestors and Gloria Girvan Akin wrote short biographies for the consumption of the extended family from John’s research and from extensive information provided by Inga Margaret Girvan Hunter (Australia).

-In the summer of 2013 Deanne Girvan had correspondence by email with Margaret Hunt from New Zealand through Wikitree. Margaret  gave information on the presence of Girvan ancestors in the U.S.A.

***

In addition to the Celtic European origins of the lineage of the people celebrated below, Africa has added increasingly its genetic impact in the Caribbean incubator from the arrival of the Scottish immigrants in Jamaica in the early decades of the nineteenth century to our times.

The stories of the ancestors of the Girvans from Scotland become endlessly fascinating as we discover and establish contact with people in other parts of the world who are connected to us by ancestry. Australia and New Zealand have been recent additions to the global concatenation of DNA, linking South Ayrshire, Scotland, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, West Africa, Panama, 4 Provinces in Canada, and probably many States in the U.S.A.

Recent disasters in the Philippines remind us that one of the nineteenth century Girvans who lived briefly in Jamaica, emigrated to the Philippines near Zamboanga on the Island of Mindanao. By virtue of the diversity in our gene pool and the global distribution of our biology, we should be  inclusionary, we must be conciliatory, empathy is a birthright, diplomacy and mediation have been our strengths.

Thanks to Inga Girvan Hunter, our Australian cousin and her son Eric for the link below showing other examples of the dissemination of Girvans worldwide

***

 (See the Images of Nineteenth Century Ancestors in the gallery below)

Ancestral

Shadows

***

Phantoms from another realm,

Carefully dressed, but disheveled from the passage of time,

Depixelating,

Fading inexorably into eternity,

You sit uncomfortable in your poses,

Conscious of your fragility,

Unconscious that your durable representation

Assigns you a purgatory within a digital technology.

Where are the  smiles you left behind? Do you keep them in a special place

Where no public can see them?

Please send us some assurance that we do not violate the privacy

That you have enjoyed since you left

This Beautiful Garden

Of Pleasures,

This Sorrowful Garden

Of  Tears.

***

A Gallery of Photos

Of Ancestors

Apologies for the surviving members, in group photos, who are still in this realm

Click on an image to start Carousel of Photos

***