Elvis Presley fans have a new
shrine to their hero — a remote Scottish hamlet named this week as the
ancestral home of the king of rock ’n’ roll.
After six years’ of research,
writer Allan Morrison says the singer was the direct descendant of blacksmith
Andrew Presley who lived 300 years ago in the Aberdeenshire village of Lonmay.
“It was like striking gold,”
he said of his research in the United States and Scotland. “You have Graceland
in Memphis. Now hopefully you will have Presleyland in Lonmay.”
“I am thrilled to bits and
trust it will bring Presley fans to the area,” he told Reuters on Tuesday.
Morrison found records showing
that Andrew Presley married Elspeth Leg in Lonmay on August 27, 1713. Their
son, also named Andrew, became the first Presley in America when he arrived in
North Carolina in 1745.
Scotland was the only piece of
British soil that Elvis Presley ever walked on. In March 1960, he made a
two-hour stopover at Glasgow’s Prestwick Airport when returning home after he
served with the U.S. Army in Germany.
Fans still pay homage at the
airport to their hero. Now they could take in Lonmay on a new Elvis pilgrimage
route.
But Presley devotees with
suspicious minds could be torn on where to go as the Elvis lineage has long
been a source of dispute from the Presili hills in Wales to an Irish saint from
Munster called St Elvis.
An American Genealogical Web
site even claimed that Elvis and former President Jimmy Carter were sixth
cousins once removed because they shared a 17th century German ancestor.
