Many of the Buccleuch estates in the south of Scotland were upland in nature and sheep farming was al;ways pre-eminent. Often hill farms were rented out to other large landowners who were not resident.

Estates like Canonbie were much more low-lying with scope for arable farming as well as stock keeping. Arable farming was by nature much more labour-intensive with seasonal activities of ploughing, sowing, harrowing, harvesting and manuring. As a result, farming units were generally smaller in Canonbie with a large number of small tenant farmers in place during the 18^th century.

It is interesting to see how tenants were treated by a large landowner like Buccleuch. By the middle of the 18^th century, the Dukes of Buccleuch had chosen to live on an estate in the south of England and had paid scant attention to their Scottish estates for many years prior to this. Each of the estates was looked after locally by a chamberlain who was responsible for collecting rents from the tenants and arranging any building or repair work required.

Landsetting

The tenancy of many of the established farms on the Canonbie estate was complicated with farms divided into two, three or four parts, not always equal.  The businesss of ‘landsetting’ i.e. agreeing tenants and rents to be paid was an annual occurrence in each of the Buccleuch Estates across the south of Scotland.

By 1753 there was a new child duke Henry Scott following the death of his grandfather the 2^nd Duke in 1751. There was also a new management regime in place and attitudes to late rent had changed. 

Rent Arrears

Chamberlain John Laing’s Arrears Listing for Canonbie dated 25^th June 1746 shows how tolerant the estate was at that time to late payers.  Jean Smith, one of the tenants at the farm of Braidridlanside, owes her full rent from 1744 and 1745 and half of her 1743 rent. Another tenant, William Waird owes 2 years rent (1744 and 1745) while the third tenant Thomas Armstrong owes the 1745 rent.

By contrast, the minutes of the landsetting meeting of 1753 shows that the new chamberlain John Boston  takes a tougher approach.

‘William Chisholm Hairla(w)hagg owes £4 of the rent due at Martinmas which he promises to pay the 23^rd inst. And he and James Anderson who owes £8 were certified that unless payment was made that day they would be removed.’

The minutes of the landsetting meeting do also suggest that the estate did try to manage trouble and disputes with tenants as best they could. This included families. Here is an example:

‘Hardenside. Robert Hog to be removed for bad neighbourhood to his brother’s family.  John, the brother, is willing to take the whole’

Agricultural Improvement

At that time many of the tenancies had been let on a year by year basis.     However, one of the agricultural improvements which were advocated at that time was to routinely agree multi-year ‘tacks’ or rental agreements.  This encouraged the tenant to invest in the farm himself by improving the land with the expectation of getting better crop returns over the years. It was seen as a win-win by Buccleuch as well as the value of the land would also improve and the scope for rent increases became greater.

Henry Scott, the 3^rd Duke of Buccleuch revolutionised agriculture on his estates during 60 years as Duke, guided in part by his mentor Adam Smith. He brought a number of farmers up from Norfolk where they had embraced the latest thinking on crop rotation and management. They were given tenancies on some of the more productive Buccleuch Estates like Canonbie. This was to influence other local tenants and drive some of the improvements that ultimately occurred.

In time farmland was re-organised and consolidated to make more efficient units, ultimately leading to a reduction in the number of people working the land. However through all of the 18^th century we have valuable sets of rentals for Canonbie parish with a great number of small tenants named in the Buccleuch records held at the National Records of Scotland. These are an excellent source for anyone with an interest in family history.

New Canonbie Documents Available

I’ve made up a new package of 3 documents taken from the Buccleuch archive.  These will be of interest to anyone with farm tenant ancestors in Canonbie.  First is a transcription of the full 1746 arrears listing for Canonbie parish of which an extract is reproduced above. It lists around 108 different tenants. Second is a transcription of the minutes of the 1753 landsetting minutes, which gives a fascinating insight into the way that tenants were managed on the Buccleuch Estates in the mid-18^th century. Also included is a map of the Canonbie Estate showing the exact location and extent of all 72 Buccleuch farms in the parish which were in existence in 1718.  The acreage of each farm is given. The original documents are all in the care of the National Records of Scotland. This is available HERE for a special price of £5 until the end of July 2025.

The post Lowland Estate Tenants in the 18th Century first appeared on Relatively Scottish.

Samye Ling Tibetan Monastery, Eskdalemuir

Eskdale in Dumfriesshire is to some, a rather out of the way, insignificant place. However, it’s contribution to humanity has certainly been impressive ; the birthplace of Scots language poet and co-founder of the Scottish National Party Hugh MacDiarmid; the birthplace of arguably Britain’s greatest ever civil engineer Thomas Telford; and the amazing Buddhist centre of Samye Ling which has been attracting a huge range of visitors including major celebrities since its inception in the 1960s.

For those of us interested in family history, it is home to the Beattie and Little families with others like Telfer, Glendinning, Armstrong, Laidlaw and Scott prominent as well. One of the other influences across most of Eskdale are the Buccleuch Estates. The Dukes of Buccleuch have owned a large portion of farms across the four parishes of Langholm, Westerkirk, Eskdalemuir and Ewes for over 400 years. And whatever you think of that form of ownership, we genealogists are grateful for the historical record keeping associated with it. Rentals give us details of farm tenants in particular years and in some cases we get additional information about relatives – mothers, brothers, uncles etc. Buccleuch Estates preferred to support single family succession in many of their farms which means that we often find the same family surname in a farm over a lengthy period. I’ve been able to transcribe a number of rentals for Eskdale farms covering the years of 1714, 1766 and 1814 which in many cases allow us to see family succession over an extended period. If your ancestor was a Buccleuch farm tenant then there’s an excellent chance that you can learn something new about the family from some of these rentals, recorded at a time before decennial censuses were started.

As the title of this piece suggests, there were a considerable number of farm tenants in Eskdale named Beattie or Little. However there are at least 30 other surnames included in the rental documents. These documents are available HERE at a small cost and join a growing collection of transcribed rental documents covering Dumfriesshire and Roxburghshire parishes available from Relatively Scottish. I hope they may prove to be useful for you.

The post Eskdale: Not just Beatties and Littles first appeared on Relatively Scottish.

Those of you with an interest in historical maps of the Buccleuch/Queensberry Estates in Nithsdale may be aware that there’s an excellent collection of such maps on a farm by farm basis available online at the National Library of Scotland website (maps.nls.uk). These cover both 18th and 19th centuries and are a great insight into how our ancestors may have farmed the land.

Unfortunately though, the NLS collection doesn’t cover all the farms of the Border Estates of Roxburghshire, Eastern Dumfriesshire and Selkirkshire. There is however an alternative resource available online called Charting the Nation: Maps of Scotland and Associated Archives 1550-1740. The University of Edinburgh put this collection together back in 2014. Amongst thousands of high quality map images are individual farm maps of all Buccleuch farms which were surveyed back in 1718 as part of an extensive programme of agricultural improvement.

The example image above shows the map of the farm of Bowanhill at Teviothead in Roxburghshire. This shows the shape of the whole farm including buildings, rivers and enclosures where appropriate. It names all the bordering properties and offers a withering verdict on the quality of the land in many cases. Here we have ‘indifferent good corn land’ and ‘sorry pasture’.

These maps are all part of the Buccleuch Muniments kept at the National Records of Scotland. But here they are conveniently available to a worldwide audience through the University of Edinburgh website. Explore them yourself at Charting the Nation. Select ‘Browse All’ to view the full collection. Please comment if you find them useful at all.

The post Buccleuch Estate Maps first appeared on Relatively Scottish.

It was for that reason that Annan Waterfoot became important for emigration from the Borders in the early years of the 19^th century.  At Waterfoot, about a mile downstream of the town at the mouth of the River Annan, there was sufficient draft to allow reasonably sized sea-going vessels to berth at the piers there. Sailing ships of 200-300 tons departed regularly for ports like St Johns and Quebec in Canada with perhaps 150 souls on board seeking a new life.

An 1832 report in the Carlisle Patriot newspaper describes emigrants departing from Annan to join an emigrant ship at Maryport, a port on the other side of the Solway Firth.   ‘Emigrants for Canada to sail by the Donegal of Maryport have, during the first 2 days of this week, arrived at Annan, principally  from Roxburghshire and the neighbourhood of Hawick and Jedburgh. They were of all ages, from infants hanging at the breast, to old men and women of apparently 70 and 80 years of age; and many of them seemingly opulent farmers and their families. On Tuesday nearly 30 carts heavily laden with luggage passed through this place. The whole sailed this morning in four vessels previously engaged to convey them. The numbers are computed at 150 or 160; and it is also said that squad is only the advance guard of the body preparing to follow them.’

Undoubtedly, many of those who emigrated to Canada from Dumfriesshire, Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire around the 1820s would have joined their ship at Annan for the 6 week journey to Canada.

By the middle of the 1830s, larger steamships up to 500 tons were introduced to provide a twice-weekly passenger service to Liverpool. I became aware of this when a family history client came to me to discover more about the links between Annan and Liverpool in his own family.  Family members from Annan travelled back and forth regularly in the 1830s and 1840s operating as ‘travelling drapers’.  With the coming of the railways by the end of the 1840s, steamships became uncompetitive and the service ceased operation although cargo ships continued to run from Annan to Liverpool for many years to follow.

There was an attempt to revive a passenger service in 1899 but it failed to receive the backing it needed. Annan remained as a fishing port but it’s importance as a trading port declined significantly thereafter.

The post Annan – gateway to a new life in Canada first appeared on Relatively Scottish.

He was born in Eskdalemuir in Dumfriesshire on 8th September 1780. However, you’ll not find the birth of a Charles Pasley if you look in the Old Parish Registers. He was born illegitimate as Charles Dixon with just his mother Bessy (or Betty) Dixon listed. It is the minutes of Eskdalemuir Kirk Session which tells us the real story.

“Compeared Bessy Dixon and confessed she had brought forth a child in uncleanness to Charles Pasley now residing in Lisbon. She was rebuked according to her confession and was appointed to enter upon a course of satisfaction and to appear before the congregation next Lord’s day; in regard that the Moderator reported that the said Charles had confessed to him and others of his friends before he left the country that he was the father of that child.”

The Kirk Session record shows that both mother and father have separately confessed their guilt to the minister. His father Charles Pasley was a merchant in Lisbon with a family link to Craig in neighbouring Westerkirk parish. His uncle was Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley RN who served with distinction in a number of 18th century naval campaigns.

This is one of the many insights that only the minutes of the Kirk Session can give us about Scottish historical figures. These Kirk Session minutes are freely available at scotlandspeople.gov.uk. You’ll also find a list elsewhere on this site (available for a small charge) which indexes all illegitimate births, irregular marriages and antenuptial fornications which were exposed by Eskdalemuir kirk session between 1703 and 1823.

The post Eskdalemuir Roots of an Empire first appeared on Relatively Scottish.

Estates as large as Buccleuch generated a substantial amount of paperwork in routine administration on a day to day basis. Indeed the burden of administration was often contracted out to a range of parties including chamberlains and solicitors. As a result, there is very much a mixed picture of records across the estates – some have been kept meticulously and survived over hundreds of years. Others are sporadic and incomplete. 

For those in the direct employ of the estate, the records are patchy. Some records of wages for named individuals for certain periods do survive but many have been lost. There are also some records of piece payments for specific work undertaken by contractors like quarrying or forestry.

It is possible to search the collection to see what might be available using the NRS search tool at http://catalogue.nrscotland.gov.uk/nrsonlinecatalogue/welcome.aspx. Enter ‘GD224’ in the Reference field to search only the Buccleuch collection.

The area which has perhaps been best preserved are the rental rolls for the farm tenancies which cover a period from around 1630 through to the 20^th century. Many of these rolls are now in the care of the National Records of Scotland in a collection known as the ‘Buccleuch Muniments’. These include the estates of Dalkeith, Melrose, Eckford, Ettrick Forest and Kirkurd, Hassendean and Hawick, Teviotdalehead, Eskdale, Ewesdale, Westerkirk, Eskdalemuir, Liddesdale and Canonbie.

A rental document details the name of tenants and the amount which they were due to pay on an annual basis. On the face of it, that may not seem to be of much value to a family historian.  However, the chamberlain who was responsible for drawing up the rental document would often add little snippets of helpful family information e.g. ‘George Armstrang, son to the old tenant’  can be very useful information when we have the possibility of consulting an earlier rental to find a ‘Robert Armstrang’ as the tenant at that particular farm several years before.  If we read the tenants as ‘Jean Thomson and her son Robert Elliot’ then we can deduce that Jean Thomson’s husband was a Mr Elliot who was the former tenant and has now died (women are always given their maiden name in these rental documents) and Jean and Robert are now joint tenants. Brothers and uncles are also often mentioned too. There was a strong tradition of keeping tenancies in a family wherever possible in the Buccleuch Estates. I know this as my own ancestors were tenants at a single Buccleuch property for over 250 years.

In normal times, records held by the National Records of Scotland can be consulted if you can visit Register House in Edinburgh. But with Register House having been closed since March 2020, these are definitely not normal times. I have therefore made transcriptions of some Buccleuch rental rolls  that I hold available for download on this website. These cover just two of the estates – Canonbie and Liddesdale. Some are free of charge and there is a small charge for others. I believe however that they will be of considerable value for people who have farming ancestors from this area. Years available at present are 1630, 1766-67 and 1814-15 for both Liddesdale and Canonbie and also 1792-93 for Canonbie. The later rolls in particular often feature not just main tenants but sub-tenants and cottars too with perhaps just a house and a very small patch of land for themselves. Further Canonbie rolls for 1683 and 1701 have just been added to the collection.

Records pertaining to the Queensberry Estate (surrounding Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire) remain with the Duke and so tracing ancestors on this estate is not as simple. However, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be able to offer some transcripted rentals for Queensberry Estate very soon.

The post Ancestors on the Buccleuch Estates ? first appeared on Relatively Scottish.

Last time I talked about the value of Kirk Session records and how they can help to fill the gaps in the information provided by more conventional resources that we know like Old Parish Registers and Monumental Inscriptions. One of the drawbacks of the Kirk Session records is that they require computer access to the imaging network of the National Records of Scotland either in Edinburgh or in one of the satellite hubs in heritage centres elsewhere in Scotland. With these centres having now been closed for many months, we can see the deficiencies in current provision very plainly. And don’t even mention access for those further afield outside of Scotland !

However, I’m delighted to announce that I’ve completed indexing of Canonbie kirk session records and am making full indexes available on this site. Three indexes will be available – one covers 975 illegitimate births between 1708 and 1855 and the name of the father is almost always included. The kirk session records show that most of the named fathers do acknowlege their ‘guilt’ to the church. A few do initially dispute the fact that they were in fact the father but after a de facto trial process which the kirk session invoked, most do in fact finally agree (and were thus liable to pay some maintenance to the mother).

There were around 250 so-called ‘irregular marriages’ – marriages which were legal in the eyes of the law but frowned on by the church. Canonbie was in an ideal location for irregular marriages to happen. In the early 18th century, runaway couples from Canonbie just had to cross the border into England and there were clergymen who could marry them there in front of witnesses without all the palaver of a Church wedding. However, with the introduction of Hardwicke’s Act of 1753 in England, it was no longer possible to get married there without residence requirements and banns being read. Very quickly, Scottish marriage law suddenly became exceptional in not requiring residence and nor did it need a clergyman to perform the service. A whole industry came to be set up in the neighbouring parish of Gretna targeted at eloping couples from England. However, it was also very simple for couples from Canonbie to find a suitable marriage ‘celebrant’ there and continue to defy the kirk. Time and time again we find reference to Gretna irregular marriages within Canonbie Kirk Session records.

The third classification singled out for rebuke and fine by the kirk session was ‘ante-nuptial fornication’. This was encountered when a couple conceived a child out of wedlock but then got married, normally before the child was born. Over 250 instances of this occurs in the records between 1708 and 1855. In reality, there would have been many more but records don’t survive for that entire period – there are some gaps. A particular value of these records is where they indicate a marriage prior to 1768. There are no OPR marriage records for Canonbie parish prior to 1768.

Along with the Kirk Session records, a number of indexes of farm rental records for Canonbie are also being made available covering different rental years between 1630 (the earliest available Buccleuch rental document) and 1815.

Download documents are variously available for free, or for a small charge of £5 or £10. This will help support further transcriptions for this and other parishes. Visit the Canonbie Download page here

The post New indexed genealogy resources for Canonbie now available at relativelyscottish.com first appeared on Relatively Scottish.

But what of the origins of the family ?  Why did they move to Ulster in the first place ? The Sturgeon name has its origins firmly in and around Dumfries and the eastern part of the Stewartry. And Sturgeons do crop up associated with a number of historical events associated with the area..

In an epic power struggle during the regency period when James VI was just a boy in 1585, John Maxwell, the Earl of Morton, attacked Stirling Castle with a large number of his tenants from Dumfriesshire. Among them were 15 Sturgeons.

Sturgeons appeared on both sides of the Covenanting argument. In 1644, Sir John Sturgeon of Torrorie (near Kirkbean in Galloway pictured above) was tried in Edinburgh with a number of other lairds for his Royalist sympathies.  Some of his co-accused ended up losing their heads but Sir John seems to have been a little more fortunate. Forty years later, when Covenanters were being hunted high and low during the ‘Killing Times’ , a William Sturgeon of Barncrosh (near Ringford in Galloway) was accused of conversing with Covenanting fugitives.

It’s not inconceivable that Nicola Sturgeon’s ancestors may have moved to Ulster to enjoy greater religious freedom during  the 1680s when the South West of Scotland was a dangerous place for Covenanters. Perhaps we shall never know.

The post The Sturgeons of Dumfries and Galloway first appeared on Relatively Scottish.

I’ve often seen it suggested that what with the wholesale hanging of reivers in the years following 1605 and the considerable exodus of reiver names to the Ulster Plantation after 1609, that areas like Liddesdale and the Debateable Lands of Canonbie were radically changed in the years that followed. And indeed most of the killing, plundering, blackmail and moonlight riding did stop. But what if we were able to see what families were living there in place of the reivers some twenty years later ?

By 1621, the Earl of Buccleuch had acquired pretty much all of Canonbie and much of Liddesdale. And thanks to the historical rental records of the Buccleuch estates we can see exactly who was tenanting all their farms in Liddesdale and Canonbie as early as 1630. I have transcribed the information as best as I can and the results may surprise you. The rental lists are shown in the two links below.

Liddesdale farm rentals in 1630

Canonbie farm rentals in 1630

In Liddesdale you can see that it’s pretty much all Armstrongs and  Ellotts with some Crosers , Nixons and Hendersons

In Canonbie it’s Armstrongs, Irvings and Bells with a few Grahams, Beatties and Littles for good measure. So pretty much the same mix of names that would have been found 30 years earlier.

What’s also noticeable is a smattering of the most infamous reiver families live on – there’s no less than 3 sons of Kinmont Willie and also Lancie Armstrong of Whithaugh. There’s a Clement and a Quentin Croser – definite echoes of their distinctively named reiver forebears.

For some families at least tenanting under  Buccleuch estate management  brought stability and longevity. My own family were Buccleuch tenants in Canonbie for at least 250 years.

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The post Reiver Families of Liddesdale and Canonbie in 1630 first appeared on Relatively Scottish.

The original data was taken from the Lieutenancy minutes for the sub-division of Eskdale under the terms of the Militia act 1797. This originally required that a record was made of eligible men in the parish from age 19-23, although by 1802 this had been extended upwards to age 45.

This can be considered as a census substitute for Canonbie parish in Dumfriesshire with all men aged 19-45 in Canonbie parish in 1802.  The third person on this list is my own great great great great grandfather who would have been 39 or 40 at the time.

The post Canonbie Militia List – 1802 first appeared on Relatively Scottish.