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« on: Sunday 02 September 07 21:43 BST (UK) »
Just come across this board. Maybe I can shed some light.
I have a letter written in 1927 by Marianne Susan Stuart Scotcher (1837 - 1935), my mother's great aunt (her younger sister - my great-grandmother - was Susan Muller Scotcher who married Edwin Stanley Clark in 1872). The letter was written to her great-nephew, Billy Bullock Webster (1879 - 1970), a theatre educator in Vancouver, B.C. The letter discusses the Scotcher "story".
She was known to my mother and other family members as "Auntie Bena". She never married and spent much of her adult life in Russia tutoring the children of nobility. She followed in the footsteps of her aunt, Jane Stuart Scotcher (1810 - 1879), who also tutored Russian princes. It was Aunt Jane who passed down the story. In the 1927 letter she writes..."She (Jane) knew, she said, we were descendants of the Scottish family (of) Henry Darnley Stuart, who married Mary Queen of Scots and they had one son who became James the First of England."
Marianne's parents were Nicholas Stuart William Scotcher (1813 - 1903) and Eliza Crawford Muller (1815 - 1881).
I would be glad to share additional information on the Scotchers & Clarks.
Steve
P.S. I tried to upload the letter which I have scanned, but the file was too large.