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Showing posts with the label Genealogy

A BRIEF (AND INCOMPLETE) HISTORY OF THE TAIT CLAN

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Genealogy is an inexact science. The path can be littered with errors and omissions. When it comes to Coats of Arms – presented to an individual, not a family, though they can be passed down the direct line – the Public Register in Scotland only goes back as far as 1672. So while the armorial bearings of the Taits of Pirn remain, others don’t.  Patrick Tait wasn’t just a fixer for old Lady Buccleuch (Elizabeth Kerr) – he was also a Knight of the Scottish realm. Sir Patrick was an official ‘procurator’ responsible for moving Lady Buccleuch’s cattle around and also looking out for them. He was placing her cattle on land in 1539 with the consent of her husband, the Knight Walter Scott of Branxholm, and was representing her at days of truce at the Redden Burn regarding stolen livestock from around 1536. He’d also been accused of pasturing sheep in England, with others of the family, in 1523, and of being involved in reiving with a number of the most notorious Armstrongs and Elliots a...

Gaps in your Border Reiver Family Tree

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Many people that descend from Border Reiver Families hit the same problem while researching their family trees – the dreaded gap. Getting back beyond the 1700s is sometimes very problematic using the Church records for one very simple and often overlooked hitch. Hundreds of people from the Reiver families were either banished or killed after King James VI ascended to the English throne in 1603. What isn’t so widely known is how long these banishments were being handed out at the Assizes in Jedburgh and Dumfries. People were still being kicked out of the Borders as late as 1642. Punishments included being drafted for military service abroad in the Low Countries (Netherlands) or being burned with a branding iron, to hanging, beheading and drowning. Many of the reivers that were banished simply took to the secluded isolation of the hills of home. They were a pragmatic people, tough and hardened to a rural lifestyle, and mistrustful of officials. So while many too...

Pinpointing the homes of your Reiver ancestors

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It can be tricky pinpointing where your Border Reiver ancestors lived when it comes to trawling through old documents. Fortunately, if your ancestors were on the Scottish side, the National Library of Scotland has not only digitised the Blaeu Atlas of Scotland Maps from 1654, but they are also available to purchase. Can you imagine a better talking point on your wall?  The maps are available here and feature the Scottish border counties in glorious detail.