With a name like Speed…..

So on to my next set of ancestors. They had the surname SPEED and they came from Fife. Sometimes the surname was spelled Speid, Speyd, Speede, Spede etc. You have to remember there was a high illiteracy rate in Scotland in the 1700s.

Our SPEED family, as far as I have been able to research, came from Cults, Fife. (another strange name!). Robert Speed born circa 1684 died in Cults on April 22, 1751. He was married to Agnes Dinness (Dennis). Their son William was born in Kame, Muirhead, Ceres, Fife, Scotland and also died in Cults. William and his wife Elizabeth Hesplin had a son Thomas who became the corn miller for Cults. Their son Robert eventually moved up to Perthshire, Scotland. HIS son Robert Jr. became a tram driver for the Caledonia Railway in Inchture, Scotland. Ironic that he and HIS son Robert Speed, both worked for the railway with a surname like SPEED!

Here is a photo of Robert Speed Sr. taken with some workers, working on a “bothy” or farm. In this photo, you can see him with the full white beard. His son is standing to the left of him (Robert Speed Jr) and sitting below him with his one arm grabbing his other is HIS son William Marshall Speed who was my husband’s great grandfather. So here, we have my husbands, greatgrandfather, great great grandfather and great great great grandfather all in one photo!!! How lucky am I??

In these next photos you can see Robert Speed Sr. with his tram, at Crossgates in Inchture, Perthshire, Scotland. It was pulled by horses and regularly took passengers from local villages to Dundee.

William M.Speed worked as a railway clerk until he went off to fight in WWI, which unfortunately, he never returned from.

Robert Speed Sr. in his younger days.