Tuesday, March 29, 2016

New Publications Sales List and Postage Rates

Royal Mail very slightly increased its postal rates on 29 March.

The new rates are in an updated version of our publications sales list, which also lists our more recent publications:
Bunkle & Preston Monumental Inscriptions
Lyne, Megget & Manor Monumental Inscriptions
To Follow the Dogs and Carry the Stick

You can buy these 3 publications by clicking the Buy Now buttons on the page.

As an added bonus, our sales list includes parish maps for the 4 historic Scottish Borders counties (Berwickshire, Peeblesshire, Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire).

Sunday, March 27, 2016

New Monumental Inscriptions volume for Bunkle & Preston, Berwickshire


We’re pleased to report that we have just published another new Monumental Inscriptions volume on CD,  for the Berwickshire parish of Bunkle & Preston, nestling in the foothills of the Lammermuirs but situated only a few miles from the county town of Duns.

In addition to the monumental inscriptions (gravestone inscriptions) at Bunkle churchyard, Preston old churchyard and new cemetery, the Hearth Tax of 1694 and the Militia Lists of 1798 and 1801, we have included other documents which shed light on the people of the parish and their lives:
The Fugitive and Porteous Rolls of 1684 list Cowan, Darling, Turnbull and other local family surnames.
Militia Families Vouchers for 1812, held by National Records of Scotland, list the payments made to the wives of the men serving in the Militia and include the names of children.
The Blackadders Cash Book for East Blanerne, 1821-1837, is an exciting find which Borders Family History Society will be researching further.  We have included information on the 41 people employed as herds, hinds, blacksmiths, bondagers and house boys.
Another find, courtesy of a researcher in Canada, is a poem by a former pupil of Millburn school. John Aitken remembers those who attended the school in 1823 and includes places of residence and family occupations.
The Ministers of Bonkyl (the old name for Bunkle) & Preston are listed together with full transcriptions of the War Memorials in Bonkyl Church, in Preston and the Roll of Honour in Preston Recreation Hall.

We are indebted to the work of James Hardy, D C Cargill, James Robson and James Hewat Craw without whose earlier recordings, so many inscriptions and descriptions of stones, would have been lost.

The pre-1855 stones were recorded in 1969 by David C. Cargill but many have since been weathered and the inscriptions worn and some have completely disappeared. In the relatively short period since we started visiting the churchyard to record the stones, several have fallen over.

There are over 330 surnames and their variations listed in the Monumental Inscriptions: Adamson, Ainslie, Aitchison, Aitken, Allan, Allison, Anderson, Armstrong, Aubrey, Baillie, Ballantyne, Barclay, Barlow, Barrie, Bartram, Battye, Bell, Bennet, Bernsfather, Bertram, Black, Blackadder, Blackie, Blaikie, Blair, Blyth, Bogue, Bookless, Bower, Boyd, Braidwood, Brodie, Broomfield, Brown, Brownlie, Bruce, Burns, Cairns, Calder, Campbell, Carlisle, Carr, Carss, Carter, Cassels, Cassie, Chirnside, Chisholm, Christie, Clark, Cleghorn, Clinskill, Cockburn, Colville, Cowe, Cowen, Cowie, Craig, Cranston, Crawford, Crow, Curay, Currie, Cuthbert, Dalgleish, Darling, Darrie, Davidson, Davies, Deans, Denham, Denholm, Dick, Dickson. Dippie, Dixon, Dodds, Dougal, Douglas, Dudgeon, Duncan, Dunlop, Eddie, Edmond, Edwards, Elliot, Fair, Fairbairn, Fergusson, Ferme, Ferrier, Fiddes, Fish, Fisher, Fletcher, Forbes, Ford, Forrest, Forsyth, Fortune, Foulds, France, Freature, Fulton, Galbraith, Galloway, Gibson, Gillas, Gillieson, Glendinning, Goldsmith, Goodall, Gordon, Graham, Grant, Gray, Grieve, Haggarty, Haig, Hall, Halliday, Hamilton, Hardie, Harris, Hastie, Hay, Henderson, Henry, Herriot, Hewot, Hill, Hislop, Hogarth, Hogg, Hoggart, Home, Hood, Horsburgh, Housley, Howie, Hoy, Inglis, Jacks, Jackson, James, Jeffery, Johnson, Johnston, Jordan, Keenan, Kemp, Kennedy, Kerr, King, Kirk, Laidlaw, Lamb, Landles, Lauder, Law, Lawrie, Lawson, Layel, Leitch, Liddle, Lindsay, Logan, Lorain, Lugget, Luke, Lumsdaine, Lunham, Lunn, Mabon, Mack, Mackenzie, Macleod, Mair, Maitland, Mann, Marshall, Martin, Mason, McArthur, McGill, McKay, McMurchie, Mercer, Middlemass, Middlemiss, Mileson, Miller, Minchin, Mitchell, Moffat, Moir, Molesworth, Moor, Moran, Mossman, Murray, Nairn, Nisbet, Norrie, Norris, Oliver, O'Toole, Pate, Paterson, Patterson, Paxton, Peacock, Person, Playfair, Plenderleith, Pounton, Preston, Pringle, Proudfoot, Purves, Rae, Ramsay, Rankin, Redden, Redpath, Reeder, Reid, Renton, Renwick, Roberts, Robertson, Robson, Rose, Runciman, Rutherford, Scheibe, Scot, Scott, Scougal, Service, Shaw, Shearlaw, Sheriff, Shiel, Simpson, Skene, Slight, Smail, Smith, Spence, Spratt, Steel, Stenhouse, Stevenson, Stewart, Stobie, Straiton, Stuart, Swan, Swanston, Tait, Tapp, Taylor, Telford, Tennant, Thompson, Thomson, Todd, Torbet, Trotter, Tunnah, Turnbull, Utterson, Vallance, Veitch, Waddell, Wait, Waldron, Walker, Walls, Watson, Weatherhead, Weatherly, Weekes, Weir, Wells, White, Whitecross, Whitehead, Whitelaw, Whitson, Wightman, Wilkinson, Wilson, Winter, Wood, Wright, Wylie, Young, Younger, Yule, Zimmermann.

There are layout plans of Bunkle and Preston churchyards and of the new Preston cemetery.  The Monumental Inscriptions and Memorials are indexed by Surname, First Name and Date of Death.  Surnames on the Hearth Tax, the Militia Lists are indexed and there is a place name index.

The CD costs £7.50 plus postage.

You can get a copy at our archive at 52 Overhaugh St, Galashiels, TD1 1DP, or by choosing the appropriate delivery option and pressing the Buy now button below.
Please note: World Zone 2 includes Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Oceania.
Europe includes Eire and Russia.
World Zone 1 comprises all other countries.

If there are other publications you want to buy at the same time, please visit our Contacts page and order using the contact type Order for Publications.



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Thursday, March 17, 2016

Free DNA Tests for Men Named Riddell

A lady in New Zealand named Gail Riddell and an apparently unrelated Jim Riddell in America are joint administrators for the Riddell/Riddle/Ridley/Ruddell DNA project with an American based firm called FamilyTree DNA. .

Gail's family were mostly from the Roxburghshire area but were also in Berwickshire and Lanarkshire (not to mention all through the Lothian area), depending on the lands they purchased/versus where their money was "made". Jim's forebears were from Lanarkshire in the late 16th Century and are thought to have left at the time of the Covenanters.

Gail wrote "I have many men from New Zealand, Australia, USA, one from South Africa and a few from UK who have been excited by what they have learned as a result of testing their Y-Chromosome.  They have worked hard in order to raise sufficient funds for me to be able to offer totally free, a number of  Y-37 tests for any man living in Northumberland, the Scottish Borders, Yorkshire or lowland Scotland who has this surname and who has a family tree of his paternal ancestry back to around 1800 or earlier.

The bottom line is to extend and "prove" our genealogy in a way that paper trails have been unable.  By that, I mean if we go back into history, especially the 1600s (as an example) and look at the deaths, followed by pestilence, followed by famines and we soon begin to realise that not everyone who bears a particular surname is actually of that stock.  I say this because many young women with wee ones to feed were made widows and frequently joined up with a "protector" who thus gave his name to those
wee ones.

For those who are anxious about DNA testing - the medical genes are not considered in the test that I am offering as a "freebie".  The test itself needs just two separate cheek swabs.  "

If you're a Riddle (whatever the spelling), and you've got a family tree on the paternal side back to 1800, and you would be willing to take the test, please contact Gail at the email address below.


If you would like to know more about DNA, see www.familytreedna.com

If you want help building your family tree come to our archive at 52 Overhaugh St, Galashiels, TD1 1DP. We're open every Monday from 6pm to 8pm, and every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 10am to 4pm.



Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Free Access to FindMyPast's Irish Records till 7 March

Perhaps it's the thought of St Patrick's Day or perhaps more of us have ancestors that came from Ireland than we thought.

Anyway, FindMyPast claims to have the largest collection of Irish Records and they're offering free access until 7 March.

Start your search of Irish Records.

If you need help with an English or Scottish family history problem, there are still some free family history surgeries available (you need to book in advance) on Berwick Family History Day on 16 April, or come to the Borders Family History Society stall on the day and we'll try to help.