Bicket
Reunion in Kilmarnock 5-7 August 2023
Centrestage
Long-standing readers of the Kilmarnock Standard may
remember articles about the Bicket family tree appearing first in 1969, and
then again in 1981. Since then ork on the family tree has continued, and as a
result there will be a family tree reunion at CentreStage in Kilmarnock on 5-7
August 2023.
The organizers would be happy to welcome
others who are interested in attending.
Please check with [email protected].
Saturday 5 August will be the main day, when group
photos will be taken.
Stuart Wilson, a local historian, will be giving a
couple of talks during the reunion. On
Saturday 5 August he will be talking on ‘Why your ancestors left
Scotland’. There will also be short overviews
of many of the branches by their members.
It is planned to visit local places associated with
various ancestors on Sunday and Monday.
There have been a few well-known Bickets from this
Ayrshire tree.
One of them, Sir Alexander Bicket (1853-1931), worked
for the Kilmarnock Standard in 1870 when he was 17, before heading to Liverpool
and making his name in the tugboat business there. His great-grandson is Harry Bicket OBE, the
conductor. Thomas Walter Bickett
(1869-1921) was governor of the state of North Carolina in the USA from 1917
through 1921. Welton David Becket
(1902-1969) founded one of America’s largest architectural firms. And there are still many descendant Bickets,
Bicketts, Beckets, Becketts and Bichans in Ayrshire, throughout Scotland, and
throughout the world, including Canada, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand.
Bicket family tree research started using deep DNA
testing in 2018. The result has been the
identification of 27 different branches of this tree which originated in Ayrshire. 21 of these branches all descended from a
single individual born around 1400. There are five genetic branches which can
only trace themselves back to the north of Ireland (Antrim, Down, Sligo, and
Mayo), but they are genetically clearly part of the Ayrshire tree.
There is more information about the family on https://bicket.one-name.net.
