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Hi Frank! Enjoy your picnic! It's raining here and chaotic traffic. There's some kind of truck rally and roads round Portrush, Portstewart and Coleraine are jam-packed.

I'm totally baffled over link to Sir George. Of course you're right - you've done much more research than I! Have been online nearly 24/7 trying to establish elusive link.

What I can't get is direct link, but I know it's there. Why did Jack, George's son, visit my grandfather every Sunday? Why did he want my grandfather to buy Whitehall to keep it in the family? Why did solicitors come after Jack's death to tell my grandfather he was closest living link to Sir George? Just wonder if there are some undiscovered skeletons in the closet of the White clan.

This link: libraryireland.com showed in 1910 there was indeed a Jack White in Roughan, Broughshane and General Sir George White CB, The Misses White at Whitehall (less than 2 miles from Roughan).

Going to drive to my Uncle Sammy's tomorrow to see if I can jog his memory (he's 95). He's still in Broughshane.

Wish I could send you pic of my grandfather. He looks like all the Whites and so proud in his uniform. He was in Royals and Blues and would have had career there, but was told to come home to farm as, allegedly their servants were taking advantage and running farm into the ground. He would have preferred military career in England. He bred racehorses eventually, as well as farming, but always loved horses and had one racing in Grand National in 1950s. I'm sure the Field Marshall would have been proud.

Keep in touch.
Cathy

Hi Frank, just spoke to my mum whose memory isn't what it used to be!

She told me that Captain Jack (George's son) and his son, Tony, used come in horse and trap to visit my grandfather, James, at Roughan, Broughshane, every Sunday. She said Tony was only a little boy then. She said it was indeed Jack who had wanted her father to buy Whitehall but he couldn't afford it as there were no mortgages in those days.

She said that she visited Whitehall with her father when she was a little girl after a fire and it frightened her because she remembered the big rounded doors and the fire marks. She said her father had gone down to help. There was some suspicion over whether the fire had been started deliberately. I don't know if this is the same fire as you mentioned.

She remembers that after Jack's death, solicitors came to visit and told her father that he was the now the nearest living relative to General Sir George. Wish I could find out how exactly.

We still have a large print of a picture of Sir George which she said hung in her Uncle Johnny's house from when George was still alive - a print of the original portrait commissioned by Queen Victoria and which still hangs in the Queen's collection in Buckingham Palace.

My grandfather is buried in the same graveyard as George who has a very impressive grave and commemoration in Broughshane.

My mum says she's 'not very clear' today, but if she remembers any more, I'll certainly get back to you! Keep in touch.

Cathy

Hi Frank, hope you enjoyed banquet. If it's any help, my grandfather, James White, was born c. 1877. He had a sister, Margretta, who died young. He had 6 children - Greta, May, Frank, Esther, Samuel (my uncle) and Kathleen, my mother. He had a brother, Jack (not Jack, George's son. Tried to attach pic of him in Horseguards in 1910 just before coronation of George V, before returning to family farm at Roughan, Broughshane, but it wouldn't send. Site said it was too big. Hope that may be of some use. Cathy