Many visitors over the years to Rosehearty were either doing ancestral research or were set on that direction on their visit.

One of the best places to start is old Pitsligo kirkyard at Rosehearty. It has beautifully preserved stones, which have become monuments in themselves to the local stonemasons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Sheila Spiers and her team from the Aberdeen and North East Family History Society did a marvellous job in the summer of 1984 in recording monumental inscriptions Dr Margaret Brown, a member of the team, stated: "These are the best examples of craftsmanship we have seen on gravestones and at least one of these masons had a good knowledge of anatomy, as some of the lines carved on the stones are perfect in every detail. The craftsmen were most likely a family and this particular family had developed a fairly high standard of workmanship." Sheila Spiers added: "The depth of the lettering is perhaps an answer to the preservation of the inscriptions on the oldest stones here."

Society members were delighted with the remarkable symbolism on these stones, but the angels dressed in kilts really got them thinking. This they had never seen before!

Today Sheila Spiers suggested: "if everyone who visited the churchyard carried a small scrubbing brush and gave just one stone a clean, it would keep them to stayu in good condition and deter any future mistreatment of the stones."