A-Z Challenge Surnames S

S as in SPEED

SPEED FAMILY OF FIFE

In a previous post I’d mentioned that my husband’s grandmother was the one who got me hooked on genealogy. Her maiden name was SPEED. Her father William Marshall SPEED was killed in WWI in France and her mother emigrated to Canada with her 3 surviving children in 1920.

William M. Speed’s father was Robert SPEED. Robert was born in Fife but moved with his family up to Inchture in Perthshire. He and his father both worked for the Caledonian Railway system (and in the case of Inchture is was a horse pulled tram!

Robert (Bob) Speed and his tram

Robert R. Speed was born in 1836 in Collessie, Fife and died in 1912 in Inchture. The building behind him was called Crossgates. The tram left from there but they actually also lived there. This is a photo of what the building looks like now.

Crossgates circa 2000

It’s very cool to see the building that 3 generations of SPEEDs lived in and it’s still being lived in over a hundred years later!

Here is a funeral card for Mary Speed the wife of Robert Speed who died in 1894 at Crossgates.

Robert’s father was also a Robert who was born at Tarvit Hill, near Cupar in 1796. HIS father was Thomas SPEED, a corn miller who was born and lived in the village of Cults, Fife.

Thomas SPEED’s father was William SPEED born in Kame Muirhead, near Ceres, in 1720.

William’s father was also a Robert who was born in 1694 and died in Cults in 1751. This particular SPEED family never really strayed much from this area for hundreds of years until our Robert R. SPEED came to Inchture to work.

This is the furthest back I can get for the SPEED family- Robert SPEED 1694-1751 and his wife Agnes DINNESS (Dennis) born in 1681.

I’m one of the lucky ones who can even go back this far!