574
RHUDDLAN AND RIDLAND FAMILIES.
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took up his abode in the Orkney Islands alongside of his own national con-
nections, the Scandinavians,-who had previously settled there, but
married a widow named Moar, and soon removed to Shetland, not far dis-
tant, sat down in the parish of Sandsting, Westerskeld, and became the
progenitor of the families of Ridland since living there. The families of
Shetland hold the tradition that their common ancestor changed his name
at the time of his settlement at Orkney. The Ridlands have been a pro-
lific family, as are the Shetlanders generally, but as nearly all the male
members followed the sea, many were ship-wrecked and lost on the ocean, a
circumstance that accounts for the predominace of females in that country.
Nearly every family of Ridlands reside in the parish of Sandsting, neigh-
bors to their kinspeople the Moars, who descended from the wife of Adam
Ridland, the first to settle there. Like nearly all their countrymen, the
families own small farms, consisting of from four to forty acres, which are
mostly cultivated by the women and boys, while the men spend their time
in fishing or on board the whale-ships; many of the name have gone
on foreign voyages and were never afterwards heard from by their fain-
ilies in the north. The families now living in Shetland are in moderate
circumstances and called "crofters." Some have engaged in ship-build-
ing. Many have lived to a great age, and from a comparison of photo-
graphs of typical members of the Shetland family with the aged repre-
sentatives of the Redlon and Ridlon family in the United States, a marked
resemblance may be observed. Sub-branches of the Shetland stock have
been planted in England, Scotland, Australia, and America, but they are
not numerous, with the exception of the Ridlon descent.
William Ridlon, of Boston, Mass., and Jerome Ridland who came from
Shetland to that city about fifteen years ago, met in the freight-office of
the Boston and Maine Railway station, and each instantly recognized the
family resemblance, and by clasping hands reunited a kindred chain that
had been separated across seas for six generations.
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So far as I have been able to learn, the Ridland family, once resident in
or near London, Eng., is now extinct in the male line. The family
early settled in Charlestown, Mass., although well provided with sons, was
lost sight of in two generations, and no descendant can now be found.
The descendants of Magnus Ridland, who came from Shetland in 1717,
-children born by his surname, have reached the great number of four-
teen hundred on the paternal side. No branch of the Shetland family has
any record, and their only history is traditionary. I have forwarded
many letters of inquiry to clergymen, parish-clerks, schoolmasters, and
others, and although many promises were made that copious notes would
be furnished, they have not reached me up to this hour. Two or three
links are missing from the family chain between the earliest known an-
cestor and his next descendant as now recorded on the following pages.
