Disclaimer[]
This site is intended for personal use only, the information contained within is part of ongoing research (for myself) and is not intended for general use other than as entertainment. (however, go ahead and look around, read all you want and gain knowledge about the Gordons).
Why?[]
Why did I start this Wikia site? I assume it is because at some point I lost my ever-loving-mind. I am a Gordon. Growing up I knew very little about the ancient history of the family. I knew we were Scottish, I knew we had a tartan (I had never seen it) and that was about it. In the days before the internet (a time I refer to as the Dark Ages), finding out about ancestral history was very difficult and was limited to the books on hand (family owned or at libraries). When I met my wife (just as the internet was starting.. I call these the AOL-Earthlink Days), she had a book that was given to her by a friend that had just returned from England. A book that would spark my fascination with history of the Gordons. The book is "The Castles of Grampian and Angus" by Mike Salter. This just happened to be the right book out of a collection of books that Mike wrote on the subject of Scottish Castles. This was the area of the Gordons.
Knowing that the Gordons came from Scotland I thumbed through the book and immediately found references to the Gordons and the castles they built and occupied. I was hooked on Gordon Castles. I started searching for more information... books, pictures, locations and Pandora's box was opened. I also found that there was nothing even close to a definitive list of castles, the more books I read, the more I found, the more searching on the web, an even greater number were found. My collection was growing by the day. I tried several different ways to sort and store the information. I tried Word documents, tried setting up a HTML website, nothing was working well until I found the Wiki markup language. Since this is all research, I didn't want to host it myself as this has been years in the making and that would get very expensive... so, you will have to deal with all the ads.
Goals[]
The original intent of the site was just to document Gordon Castles. The more I learned of the various histories, the more I became curious about the people. In my gathering of info, it started to become necessary to create pages based on people, battlefields and estates. I am constantly adding new pages.
The current goals are 1, finish adding the castles I know about. 2, add in pages for the main line(s) of Gordons. 3, add in place locations of Gordon estates.
After the rough info is put into pages, the next step is to revisit all the pages and link them together in the text (some of this happens as I change things here and there).
The long range goal is to get as much of the Gordon histories and places on to this site, linking events, people and places together in an attempt to make the history more coherent to anyone reading it. The written histories are purely linear and are difficult for the brain to digest. With a Wiki layout, individual people and places can be digested in much smaller bites. With this in mind, I plan to Wiki-itize (just made that word) the public domain histories namely the works by John Bulloch of the Gordon histories, probably starting with Balbithan MS. It is a lofty goal and it is years away from being started.
I do not plan to put in all the reference and source material appendix. The main reason is time, and this is just a hobby.
Who?[]
Who am is not very important. I am not a historian, just a person with a love of the Gordon Family history. This is intended for me and me alone. If you enjoy it, AWESOME!... if not, go suck an egg. If you have read through all of this and have a love for this information and want to help, I can be reached at screamingbluemessiah at yahoo dot com.
Resources[]
Here is a partial list of resources that may interest you.
"Blood Feud, The Stewarts & Gordons at war in the age of Mary Queen of Scots" - Harry Potter
John M. Bulloch compiled the largest trove of histories and stories of the Gordon histories at the beginning of the 20th century. Many volumes of his works have been made available in digital format and can be readily found on the interwebs.
Nigel Tranter has published numerous books on castles in Scotland and histories on Scotland.. again, look him up.
Mike Salter followed in the footsteps of Tranter and published a similar series of books, with more information and location information which was very helpful when I first started.
Ian Shepherd is another author that has published numerous books on Scotland's history.
H. Gordon Slade is a historian that has many papers and books out there.
Websites (There are many, but these have been invaluable)
thepeerage.com
geni.com
geograph.org.uk
canmore.org.uk
electricscotland.com
nts.org.uk