Can anyone help me with the ancestry of this lady, who is my 5-great grandmother? Her husband was the second of a whole phalanx of Alexander Andersons, belonging to the same family which lived & worked at English Mill, Inverugie, Peterhead from about 1600 to 1857. They are documented extensively in a family tree last updated & privately published in 1936.
I've got some info about Mary Gordon's ancestry from a number of online family trees, but they're not all consistent with each other. According to these, she was a daughter of Robert Gordon (1658--96) of Buthlaw, Longside, son of James Gordon (b. c. 1620), 1st laird of Buthlaw, son of Thomas Gordon (b. c. 1590), son of James Gordon (1560--92), of Birkenburn. The co-ordinates of Birkenburn are given as Dunbennan, Kinnoir, which I understand are the names of two parishes that were later amalgamated as Huntly; Birkenburn may be nearer Keith than Huntly. James Gordon's father may have been Alexander Gordon (1516--71); & Alexander's father James Gordon (1495--1553) of Lesmoir, Rhynie. This James Gordon seems to have been son of yet another James Gordon (1470--1558) first of Lesmoir, son of George Gordon (1430--81) of Tillytarmont.
(The senior Lesmoir branch, by the way, attracted a Nova Scotia baronetcy in 1625, & became extinct in 1839.)
My problem is that all the online family trees from which most of this info is taken, rely on each other for authority, so are suspect unless corroborated by documents or records & I can't (online) find any ref. to any such. So if anyone has researched the Gordons of Buthlaw, Birkenburn or Lesmoir on the ground, I'd love to hear from them.
OK, since posting the above, I've found & been able to download Rev. Wm. Temple's Thanage of Fermartyn (publ. Aberdeen 1894) in which the author has researched, from both old documents & family traditions, the major families of the Formartine district, including Gordons of Lesmoir & Gordons of Buthlaw.
The Lesmoir lineage goes like this: John Gordon of Essie---William Gordon 1st of Tillytarmont---George Gordon 2nd of Tillytarmont---James Gordon 1st of Lesmoir (d. between 1556 & 1559)---George Gordon 2nd of Lesmoir (d. 1600)---Alexander Gordon 3rd of Lesmoir (d. 1609)---James Gordon 4th of Lesmoir, 1st Baronet (d. 1641)---[a son, grandson & great-grandson, all called James Gordon, the first 2 of whom predeceased the Baronet, so the last of whom became the 2nd bart., dying without issue so that the baronetcy reverted to his great-grand-uncle, brother of James 1st bart.] William Gordon 3rd bart. (d. 1672)---William Gordon 4th bart.
This last-mentioned, the 4th bart., had a brother Alexander James, who was said by tradition in the Buthlaw family to have married his cousin Anna Gordon of Buthlaw. Another document avers that the Buthlaw Gordons are descended from Thomas Gordon of Seggieden, 8th son of James Gordon 1st of Lesmoir by his second wife, Margaret Ogilvy. These 2 statements are perfectly compatible with each other, since Anna cd. have been descended from Thomas. Alexander James Gordon & his wife Anna had 2 sons, the elder of whom died without issue leaving the property to the younger, Thomas Gordon, who died about 1694. He looks like the most likely candidate to be Mary Gordon's father. There is no mention of any Robert Gordon of Buthlaw as given in the family trees.
It looks as though the family tree info given at the start of this post is garbled; I think probably a lot of confusion has arisen due to the number of characters with the same name, whether James or Alexander; & it wd. be nice if someone cd. sort it out for me, & if it cd. be confirmed whether Mary Gordon belonged to the Buthlaw family or not---since my only ref. for that is those dodgy trees.
