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’, much less is known about emigration from the South of Scotland which has been going on since about 1600. In the Highlands , we know that many of the landowners (often clan chiefs) chose to evict their tenants so that sheep could make more money for them. In the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway, there were many different reasons for departure and it happened over more than 300 years.

After 1603, the Border crackdown by King James VI & I meant that many former reivers were forced to leave hurriedly for the Ulster plantation to avoid possible execution. Many of their descendants chose to emigrate to the United States or Canada in the 18th century. Military service often gave Borderers a taste of life and opportunities in other parts of the world and I believe this to be fairly significant when viewed over a 250 year window from 1700 through to 1950.

Many whose families had been pretty much static over hundreds of years moved from rural parts into the bustling mill towns like Hawick, Galashiels and Selkirk in the 19th century. Having made that initial move, there was then less reluctance to consider a move further afield, particularly with any downturn in the wool industry over the years. Of course it wasn’t just one way as the later 19th century saw immigration into important woollen centres like Hawick and Galashiels from other mill towns in Scotland like the Hillfoot villages of Clackmannanshire and Stirling and places like Lanark. Quite a number also came north from Cumbria and Yorkshire. Just take a look at the different places of birth of the residents of Hawick in the 1871 or 1881 census and you will see what I mean.

But if you have a story or even a mystery about your own ancestors leaving the Borders then please share it with us by replying to this post.