ALEX SALMOND has met American relatives he did not know existed until a chance discovery during family tree research.
The First Minister was thrilled to learn last year that he had blood relations in the United States from Salmonds who had sailed from Scotland in the 1870s seeking a new life.
It turned out the transatlantic adventurers were pioneers of the Wild West, with two of them even becoming famous for their stagecoach driving skills.
Now, more than a century on, Mr Salmond has brought the two sides of his family together for the first time by meeting the modern-day descendants of the first settlers in Edinburgh.
Mr Salmond discovered the full extent of his US line as a result of online research by Faith Tyler-Odell, an American pastor who had traced her roots back to Falkirk in 1704. Among those welcomed to Holyrood was Ms Tyler-Odell's daughter, Tanya Levander, whose great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was the SNP leader's great-great-great-great grandfather.
Mrs Levander, an art teacher from Michigan, and the First Minister are descended from two of the sons of farmer John Salmond, who kept cattle on a farm in Slamannan.
One son's family line remained in Scotland - where Alex Salmond was born seven generations later in 1954 - while the other led to the creation of the American Salmonds.
Mr Salmond said: "It was fantastic to meet Tanya and my other relatives from the US. I knew about the branch of the Salmond family that had gone to seek a new life in America, but to actually meet up with some of their descendants was something special. It was a privilege to welcome Tanya and her family to Holyrood."
It was in 1872 that Peter Salmond and his family set sail from Scotland and became the first of the clan in the US.
They headed to the Minnesota outpost of Parkers Prairie, which is ironically about 140 miles from the town of Independence.
The revelations come in a new book by Mr Salmond's Canadian fifth cousin, Myrla Birch.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article