Ailsa Craig Highland Games & Scottish Festival – Saturday, August 25th, 2026
Greg, Bob and Gail at our family clan table
Amie, our Stewart relative, teaching Gail to weave
2026 Ailsa Craig Highland Games & Scottish Festival
A big “Thank You” to Liz McHugh, Darren Thompson. Elise Baird, and Gail & Bob McNaughton for their contributions to our Family History Table at the Thistle Market last Saturday July 25th,
We had many visitors to our table, and met for the first time, some cousins who said they would attend our 100th anniversary reunion and promised to stay in touch. I have their email addresses and will create MyHeritage memberships for them, (a Guest Book is on the list for next year’s festival)
I had my tablet with the MyHeritage app running and was able to look up our “new” cousins and show them our family connections, (I thought of how pleased Margaret would have been to meet them)
The Market provided the participants with bagged lunches at a reasonable price and we decided that we should provide these lunches to our volunteers at our family history table, perhaps to encourage more of our clan to attend the festival,
The purpose of our participation in this event was to promote our family heritage in the community and to decide if we should commit to our ongoing participation. We all had a good time visiting, sharing stories, meeting new cousins, wandering about meeting others, collecting souvenirs, etc.,
The answer was “YES”, we all had such a good time, the food, the entertainment, the camaraderie was all great and we want to do this again next year,
I especially enjoyed the BBQ evening meal, cooked up by the New Moon Community Homestead, shared with Bob and Gail as the Mudmen started to play. It was a memorable evening, the food, the music, the company, the beer, it all fit …
(if you’ve never heard of Celtic Rock or ever wondered how a rock band and bagpipes would sound together, you should check these guys out, you can hear them on YouTube or go to their website (https://mudmen.ca/live-events) to see where they play next)
Greg McIntosh – Monday, July 27, 2026
other memories of the event …
from Gail McNaughton …
People were intrigued at our booth. The Banner that we had made them understand what our booth was all about. Then they saw all the group photos and we could show them how many came out from the very first event place to the present day. They could also see that we were having fun and reaching out to people who were passing by that sometimes started questions. I remember people being enthralled by the first reunion picture that was so long ago. We had handouts that we could give those that were interested and as well show them documentation in the books. It brought up memories for a lot of people about family reunions they had gone to in the past and not necessarily ours. Some told us about their trip to Scotland and we could tell them about times that we had been there. I had a couple of my Stewart Reunion doodles that people could look at and some smiled. I think it made our team realize how important it is to showcase our reunion information from both past and present and direct them to a website because you never know when someone will pass information on to one of the relatives somewhere in the world.