Article by David Kiltie
written for the Ayrshire Post (February 2009)
As most people now know,
2009 is the Year of Homecoming in Scotland and Maybole could
be one of the first places to welcome back “home” a high
profile descendant of one of its residents.
David Kiltie was contacted
last week by Federico Kauffmann-Doig, the present Ambassador
of Peru in Germany, who emailed to say that he would like to
visit the home of his ancestors near the end of February or
in March and asked for his information to be passed on to
the Provost, Maybole Historical Society and to the local
press.
He is a Peruvian and a
descendant of John Doig who was born in Maybole on June 24,
1792 and founded the Peruvian family of the Doigs after
emigrating there in 1820. His brother William arrived in
Peru some years later before finally emigrating to Chile.
John Doig was the son of
Jean Hutchison and David Doig who was a schoolmaster in
Maybole and was appointed postmaster on August 13, 1792.
David was born on February 15, 1740 in Maybole and died
January 11, 1819.
John’s grandfather, also
David, was the schoolmaster in Maybole in 1740 and was again
appointed schoolmaster on June 10, 1749. In 1756 he was
Master of the Grammar School and on October 11, 1756 he
became a councillor in the town. He died in 1784 at the age
0f 104.
Mr Kauffmann-Doig has a
Powerpoint presentation that includes pictures of letters
and furniture of his ancestor and would like to share these
documents with anyone living in Maybole and surrounding
places who have the name Doig.
He has a doctorate in
archaeology, as well as a second doctorate in history. He
has lectured at several of the Peru’s universities and as a
visiting professor at the University of Bonn he taught
Peruvian and American archaeology.
His prolific professional
work has been honoured with the title Amauta, the highest
award given by Peru in the field of culture. He has twice
received Peru's Premio Nacional de Cultura, and was the
first Latin American to be awarded Sweden's Neubergh Medal.
He has been decorated by the Peruvian government, as well as
by the governments of Belgium, Austria and Sweden.
He is a member of Peru's
National Academy of History, an Honorary Member of the
Barbier-Mueller Museum in Switzerland,a Member of the Royal
Academy of History in Madrid, and the founding director of
the Institute of Amazonian Archaeology.
He belongs to the
Scientific Committee of the Centro Studi Ricerche Ligabue,
in Venice, and, together with Giancarlo Ligabue, has made 14
expeditions to the Peruvian Amazonian Andes.
He is also the author of
several books. |