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During the time from first hearing about the cottage, we did our own searches to confirm the provenance of the cottage and discovered that Angus Council had spent 3 years looking into this and had produced a small leaflet showing and confirming their findings. They had also tried to contact Harley–Davidson® directly and through the American Embassy to no avail.
The image above represents a small slice of the Davidson family tree showing the direct lineage from Netherton Cottage residents to some of the living family members by way of the Motor Co. Founders. We have access to wider branches of the tree that have been held by family members over the years and will include these in the future.
We wish to thank those family members that have helped us piece together the story so far :
Jean Davidson – Family records, pictures and verbal insights.
Arthur Davidson – Pictures and verbal tales.
Heather McDonnel – Family records and verbal.
Jeff Davidson Schrager – Family records, research, verbal.
Jon Davidson Oeflein – Archive pictures.
Other sources :
Restenneth (Angus Archives) – Census records, Births / Deaths & Marriages.
1851 Census – Records of inhabitants of Netherton Cottage.
Scotland’s People – Genealogy search.
Norman Atkinson OBE (Angus Council) – Wide research on Davidsons in Angus, including Valuation Rolls.
Nick Hide – (Clan Davidson) – Further research on Davidsons in Angus.
More work is currently being done by family members and others in order to find out the exact route the family took in their journey to America.