Horsburgh Family

[muffnrob]

Morning HDW any help you can give with Horsburgh's of Pittenweem would be appreciated.
Hope attachment is of interest Jessie Ethel Hay-Hendry is my mother James Fleet Horsburgh was her Father
Kind regards
Rob Hay-Hendry

[hdw]

Hello Rob. It's always nice to find another Horsburgh  "cousin"!

Can I just point out that the surname you give as Fleet is actually Flett. It's a common name in the north-east of Scotland and the Northern Isles. Many years ago I helped a lady in Cellardyke to research her Horsburgh and Flett roots. I think she must have been a cousin of your mother. Maybe you know who I mean. She told me that after Mary Flett had been in Pittenweem for some time, married to Robert Horsburgh, skipper of the "Garland", she wrote to her parents saying what a great place Pittenweem was so they packed all their possessions into their fishing boat, sailed round the coast to Fife and settled in Pittenweem. There are still Fletts in the area. Sorting out the family-tree in Findochty/Portknockie isn't for the faint-hearted, though, as there are so many Fletts up there.

You have traced your Horsburgh family-tree back to George Horsburgh, shoemaker from Elie, who married Elspeth Stevenson in St. Monans in 1750. George seems to have been the George Horsburgh born in Elie in 1720 to William Horsburgh, shoemaker, and Mary Bickerton. The famous James Horsburgh FRS, chief "hydrographer" or seachart-maker to the East India Company, also seems to have come from this family. There is a plaque to his memory in Elie church. A rock named after Horsburgh stands in the sea near the entrance to Singapore harbour.

George Horsburgh and Elspeth Stevenson were the parents of George Horsburgh who married Janet Thomson of Pittenweem in 1781. Janet was born in 1754 to John Thomson and Isobel Morrice or Morris (m.1745, Pittenweem).

I hope this is of some use to you.

Harry

[wildcats13]

Hi everyone, I am back searching again.
I have found that a Marjory Hors(e)burgh married our George Robbie on 25 November 1779 in Old Machar, Aberdeen. through IGI I have found that she was christened 13 December 1752 in Cupar, Fife and that her parents were John Horsburgh and Isabell Hesplund. I was unable to find where John & Isabell were born & married or any other details. As Marjory came from the same county as my earlier Horsburgh searches, I am interested to see if there is a connection between them even though they are a few generations apart. Hoping someone can shed some light on it for me.
Regards
Peter Robbie

[LostScottishRite]

My mother is Doris Horsburgh born in Glasgow 79yrs old today. We live in Caanda. Her mother was Mary Horsburgh and dad Joseph Horsburgh. Hope this helps. Bryan

[Ronda231]

Hi, it's been a long time since anyone posted here but I'll give an update on what I've recently found in case anybody is interested.
The family name is generally associated with Peebleshire in the Scottish Borders, however when church records began (mid 1500s) there was already a large Horsburgh contingent living in Anstruther Wester in Fife. You can pick up their details including source material and family lines from the Familysearch website under the following People IDs: G5FJ-42K  &  G5FW-GFJ.

Regards

[Forfarian]

Why bother with FamilySearch when you can go straight to the original documents at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk?

[Ronda231]

Hi Forfarian,

Yes, you make a very good point but the purpose of my post was simply to alert 'Horsburgh people' to the fact that there are records of a large contingent of 'Horsbroughs' in Fife from 1578 onwards.

The Scotlands people website is of course the font of all knowledge when it comes to Birth Marriage and Death records of Scots from the 1500s to present day.
But, as you are aware, their search engine (on phonetic match) often leaves out significant name variation records. A search on Horsburgh and then Horsbrough gives two entirely separate sets of results (see below).

To come across such a concentration of Horsbrough records in Fife in the 1500s was a bit unusual and, as they were linked to my family name and had not been entered up in the FamilySearch tree, I combined Horsburgh & Horsbrough records for the period 1578-1620 and updated the tree accordingly - hence my post.

You can also print FamilySearch source text records for free, which is slightly better than the free one liners you can get from the Scotlands People website. Sometimes you can even download images.

Best regards

[Forfarian]

as you are aware, their search engine (on phonetic match) often leaves out significant name variation records. A search on Horsburgh and then Horsbrough gives two entirely separate sets of results (see below).

I almost never use the phonetic search.

I would search for h*r*s*b*r* which would pick up all the variations.

[Ronda231]

Thanks, that's a very good tip & I'll use it in future!

Another tip, if you use the records search function (not family tree search) on the Familysearch website, and limit the date range (Scotland - match place exactly) it picks up virtually all the name variations for birth marriage and death records in one operation - it does not matter if you put in Horsburgh, Horsbrough or Horseburgh - you get the same results.

Of course ScotlandsPeople has primacy, but FamilySearch (as other websites) has supposedly transcribed and indexed all ScotlandsPeople records and their search functions occasionally reveal results that the Scotlandspeople website doesn't.

Regards