Sheila is the last of the Stewarts of Blair, a family of travellers. the Stewarts can trace their roots in Scotland back to the eleventh century. Father Alec was a piper and storyteller; Mother Belle - "the Queen Amang the Heather"- a great singer and writer of songs such as "The Berry Fields o' Blair".

Championed by Hamish Henderson, who was collecting folklore for the School of Scottish Studies in the early 1950s, The Stewarts of Blair, Alec, Belle, Sheila and her older sister Cathie, became heroes of the folk revival. most notably in America where they were given red carpet treatment.