Canonbie Militia List – 1802

Following on from my last post regarding the militia lists for Roxburghshire in 1802,  I have found the following information which was transcribed by R.A.Shannon and made available in the Covenant and Hearth series Vol VIII in 1973 available in the Ewart Library in Dumfries. The original data was taken from the Lieutenancy minutes for […]

Read More

Local Militia Lists

At the end of the 18th century, there was considerable concern in Great Britain that the post-revolution French might attempt to invade the country. As a result, names were collected locally, parish by parish , of able-bodied men who could form a militia if required to do so. At first it was a voluntary activity, […]

Read More

The Three Brethren

Migration and the Borders

In the last few months I’ve received a lot of enquiries from descendants of people who left the Borders and emigrated overseas. They left for their own reasons and frustratingly we don’t always know why that was. But while the largely forced departure from the Highlands is widely known about and understood as ‘The Clearances’, […]

Read More

Old maps for family history

For over 150 years we’ve been spoiled by the marvellous accurate, detailed general maps of Scotland produced by the Ordnance Survey. Before that, many maps were produced perhaps for a wealthy landowner or for some specific purpose such as clarifying town and burgh boundaries.  They were often surveyed by a single surveyor with the minimum of assistance. […]

Read More

Transcending the mundane

Family history is something which I find fascinating but with the best will in the world can’t be said normally to be of life changing importance to others. Sometimes though, the result of your genealogical  activities transcend the mundane and take on an altogether higher order of importance when families are brought together for the […]

Read More