ROSEMARY Steed is a vivacious 48-year-old technology clerk in one of Scotland's leading information technology firms.

She was born and bred in Leith, Scotland, and was well into her 40s when she discovered she was the offspring of a black Bermudian, Charles William Dowding Steed.

He fathered ten children with his two Scottish wives, resulting in three or four generations of Scots bearing the name Steed with Bermuda being their ancestral home.

As excited as if she had discovered a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Rosemary arrived in Bermuda on Tuesday on a family roots reconnect. She is the houseguest of cousin St. Clair (Brinky) Tucker and his wife Lynn of St. David's.

And she can expect to be royally entertained by such other prominent cousins as Hall of Famer Gene Steede, the entertainer who has been dubbed Bermuda's national treasure; the Ross Tuzos of Warwick and Cindy Steed Williams whose kin are the Staurt Canns of Somerset.

Rosemary's father, Charles William Steed, was a decorated World War Two veteran who served in the Royal Artillery as a bombardier, in France, Belgium, Greece, and after the war in Palestine.

Shortly before his death in 1996, Charles William entrusted to Rosemary's care certain documents. He made special reference to the log of his grandfather, Charles William Dowding Steed (CDWS), who was a seafarer.

Her father's concern that she take particular care of the log intensified her interest in it. It was an official leather-bound document from the Merchant Marine Office in the United Kingdom, containing page after page of his Certificates of Discharges, each listing his character of conduct as good, and character of ability as very good in whatever he was engaged.

PON thumbing through its pages, Rosemary discovered her great-grandfather was born in Hamilton Parish, Bermuda on September 28, 1852, and was baptised in the parish church there. She also found that he arrived in Leith, Scotland in August 1878 aboard the 80-ton vessel .

There was no reference from whence the ship came, but he signed off as a cook-steward. Somewhere along the line he met Scottish lass Isabella Cunningham. Three years later, in 1881 they were married at a Wesleyan Methodist Church in Leith.

The log reveals that during the next several years CWDS' voyages took him to Cork, Ireland; China, Bombay, Iceland and Quebec, among other places. His last journey from Leith was in December 1894, when he signed off in Grangemouth, Scotland. By then he had graduated to classification as an able-bodied seaman.

Charles William Dowding Steed secured a job in the Leith Dockyard. Tragically, while working as a journeyman shipwright, he fell into a dry dock sustaining injuries that put him in a coma for several days before he died at age 47 in August 1897. He was survived by his wife Isabella, who had borne him ten children, the last being a set of twin girls.

One of CWDS' sons was William Thomas Steed (pictured with sword). He became Rosemary's grandfather. William Thomas was a professional soldier, serving from 1905 to 1911 in the Royal Artillery. Upon the outbreak of World War One, William Thomas, along with other reserves, was called up for active duty.

His unit was involved in one of the first major battles of the war, the Battle of Mons. As luck would have it, William Thomas was captured in August 1914. He was held as a prisoner of war by the Germans for the duration of the war. Three times he was recaptured while attempting to escape ? the last time at serious threat to his life.

In keeping with prevailing conventions pertaining to prisoners of war the Germans sent postcards showing their captives to families as proof they were alive. William Thomas is seen with fellow POWs (third from the right, in the rear). After World War One, lady luck was more blessed to William Thomas. He lived until 1976, dying at age 85.

As we stated earlier, William Thomas was one of Bermudian Charles William Dowding Steed's ten children, and was Rosemary's grandfather.

Rosemary, being engaged in the IT field, followed her first impulse, which was to get on the internet and do a search. She hit on the web page of no greater a resource person than Jean Simons, a Bermudian who hails from Devonshire.

For several years she has held the prestigious position of City Clerk of Oberlin in Ohio. At the time Jean was heavily involved with her cousin Brinky Tucker, Edward Welch and others in regard to the historic reconnect of the Pequot Indian Tribe and Tall Oak with the St. David's Islanders.

connected Rosemary to Brinky. In 2002 Rosemary made a lightning trip to Bermuda with her companion of many years, Richard Morgan. He is a mechanical engineer and has become heavily engrossed in her roots efforts.

A meeting with National Archivist Carla Hayward resulted in her acquiring a copy of Dr. Archie Hallett's resource book on births and deaths in Bermuda. They also were introduced to Danny Richardson, president of Leopards Club International, who took them to the Methodist Church in Harris Bay, and to Holy Trinity Church in Bailey's Bay. At Trinity the Rector showed her the ancient font at which CWDS was baptised.

Through the medium of census records in Leith, and Dr. Hallett's book, Rosemary has meticulously compiled a 21-page family tree of her ancestors in Bermuda and Scotland. It shows her great- grandfather, CWDS, was one of the ten children of Benjamin Steed's two marriages.

Benjamin was born in 1826. One of his daughters was Almanza Medora Steed. She was born in 1858. Her first husband was a Benjamin, and her second was Somers James Tuzo.

A year ago Brinky Tucker and his wife travelled to Dublin in connection with his role as Provincial Grand Master of Irish Freemason Lodges in Bermuda. The Tuckers made a side trip to Scotland to be Rosemary's guests. It was then plans were made for her current visit to Bermuda.

Rosemary said she had no inkling her ancestor was a black man. She recalled, as a youngster, shrugging off the fact that sometimes people used to take second looks at her and her two brothers.

One had curly hair. He became a policeman in London but died. The other had straight hair. Her father had what she called 'nice skin' and so did an aunt. She was a platinum blonde with good skin texture. Her father always commented on the fact that he had 33 first cousins in Scotland.

Only two weeks ago a Jackie Burton phoned Rosemary announcing she was a second cousin; and that her brother had returned after visiting Bermuda in August totally unaware of the Steed family connection. Every day it seems, beautiful new discoveries come to the surface.