The following is compiled from the oral narrations of my father, as far as I can remember them correctly.

After his return to Scotland, my grandfather married a Miss Smith, of a good middle class family in the parish of Alford, Aberdeenshire, and by her had issue two sons and four daughters. I forget the names of the daughters, my aunts. The sons were James and Thomas, the former being my father. When he was about ten years of age, my grandfather was killed by a fall from his horse near the village of Argathen in the parish of Alford. My father apprenticed himself to a hand loon weaver, in order to learn what was then a flourishing trade, and by his skill and perseverance, in a few years after his apprenticeship my father rose to a good position as a manufacturer. This was long before the days of steam looms. He married first, a Miss Proctor, and by her had three sons and four daughters, named as follows: James, who died young, Charles, George, Isabella, Dorothy, May, Mary. Secondly he married my mother, Miss Mary Bain daughter of Alexander Bain of Roadside Lochiel and granddaughter of Alexander Forbes, Esq. By his second marriage my father had issue five sons and five daughters: Jane, Alexander, Maria, who died in infancy, Helen, William, the author of this book, Elsie, John, who died in 1870, leaving two daughters, James, Peter, Ann, who died young.

Notwithstanding all the reverses of fortune through which he had passed, my father used to continually impress on his children the fact that we were never to forget that we were gentlemen by blood, and related to the oldest of the nobility of Scotland, and never to forget the mottos and crests of the family, viz., a cock and a phoenix rising from flames, with the mottos "watch" and "never have to pale at guilt". The latter my father used to say meant, " Never do a mean action" assured that if we would strictly adhere to our mottos, we, his children would eventually rise to the former position of our ancestors, as the fabled phoenix was supposed to rise from its own ashes purified by fire, which meant the fire of adversity. My father used to say that before the adoption of the motto "watch" of my great-grandmother, the full motto of the family of Mitchell was, " nulla pallescere culpa," viz., to be conscious of no crime and to turn pale at no accusation, and keeping this in view, never to be cast down through undeserved misfortune.

Connecting our family history with India and especially with Calcutta, I may inform my children that Major General William Nairn Forbes of the II.E.I. Coy's Bengal Engineers, the architect and builder of St Paul's Cathedral and the Calcutta Mint, was my mother's uncle. I am therefore his grand nephew. Major General Forbes was born Blackford in Aberdeenshire on 3^rd April 1796 and died Aden on his way to Scotland on the 1^st May 1855. There is a monument to his memory in St Paul's Cathedral, Calcutta.

** Note** I have only added some information from the book written by William Forbes Mitchell - to date I am waiting on other information from this book as Ann Toll has since researched this book and found dates to be wrong in some places.