AN AUSTRALIAN with familial links to the Wee County is asking keen historians to help him identify a building his family once lived in.

Malcolm Syme lives just outside Perth, Australia, and has traced ancestry back to his great uncle John Syme, who was known to live in Alloa in the 18th century.

As he was digging through some old photos, he found a photo of a big house with “Uncle John, game keeper, big estate” scrawled on the back.

Another photo found shows a house with a man and a woman stood outside, captioned “Dow, Butcher Alloa.”

Malcolm is calling upon those with sound knowledge of the area to help him find out more about his ancestors and the lives they lived in Alloa.

“Bearing in mind, I am 84,” Malcolm said. “I was hoping somebody could give me an idea of where the big estate was with my great uncle John outside.

“I’m really in the dark here so I thought maybe I’d message the Advertiser and fling it out into the wide world and see what happens.

“I’m just hoping for a bit more context to the photographs and anything is worth a go so I’m hoping we can maybe find something.”

Malcolm has managed to find that the family were stone masons and also had a hand in building a primary school in Clackmannan before emigrating to Australia in 1913.

Anyone with any information regarding the people or the building in the photographs can email editorial@alloaadvertiser.co.uk.