Melrose one-place study

[luckydog]

Thanks Alan
I have a paper copy of the Abbey Memorial Transcriptions. My aim is to find the earliest records . Interesting to note that Wattie Hart is living in Melrose. I suspect he would not appreciate a distant relative turning up on his doorstep.
Ever onwards
Mike

[alan14578]

Lucky dog www. Scottish record society (publications) Melrose parish records 1642---1820
 Also look at Melrose regality records
First one you can search on and both are essential for Melrose records

Alan

[Ronbucks]

But my own genealogy research is strongest for certain families in my ancestral line. So particularly Usher (of Toftfield, near Darnick), Blaikie (of Langhaugh, near Galashiels), Grieve (at Blainslie) and Mercer.

Hi Viv,

I also have Mercer's in my tree

My ancestors are from Melrose and appear in an  1831 Census that Maxwell Ancestery unearthed.

My ancestors are Alexander Mercer B1806 married 1828 to Janet Henderson C1809.

Their parents appear to be:-  Michael Mercer C1775 married 1801 to Isabel Milne C1781

 
& John Henderson C1782 married 1805 to Isabel Linton C1780

Best Regards

Ron

NB. I noticed a John Merser, Newstead in the Hearth Tax you provided a link to.

[vivdunstan]

I am currently researching my family in the Melrose area. One of several families I am looking is Hart. So far I have the following from your period of interest

George Hart ( no dob ) married Anne Chisholm ( dob 21/10/1733 Melrose ) 05 /09/ 1757 in Melrose. They are my 6 x great grandparents.
My 5 x gg is Robert Hart born 26th June 1763 Newsteads , died 27th Nov. 1820.
My 4 x gg is William Hart born 3rd May 1795 , married Jane Vair 23rd November 1821.

Anything you know about this family is of interest to me particularly date of birth and ancestors of George Hart.

I am also looking at the Wallace family in Melrose ( they ran a bakery business in Melrose up until the 1960's )
My brick wall is with James Wallace ( no dob ) married to Alison Phaup 6th January 1750 in Melrose . Any help there would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Mike,

At the moment the 18th century part of my one-place study is still in the early stages. So I don't really have any more information available than is in the parish registers. Have you exhausted those? Baptisms can name relatives as witnesses. Likewise marriages can have relative cautioners. Have you checked the full baptism and marriage details for all these people? And have you looked for any trace of a burial? There's a mortality list from about 1770 onwards which often includes ages for the people who had died.

Also it's not 100% reliable but naming patterns can be useful clues. Scots at this time had a habit of naming children after relatives according to a pretty fixed set of rules. Have you been able to find probable all children for these families and if so do the children's names give any clues?

I'd be happy to check the parish registers if that would help, but you can probably do that easily yourself. They're online at ScotlandsPeople but I like to work with the Scottish Record Society's transcribed version which is very handy, and readily available free now in digitised form.

[vivdunstan]

I also have Mercer's in my tree

My ancestors are from Melrose and appear in an  1831 Census that Maxwell Ancestery unearthed.

My ancestors are Alexander Mercer B1806 married 1828 to Janet Henderson C1809.

Their parents appear to be:-  Michael Mercer C1775 married 1801 to Isabel Milne C1781

& John Henderson C1782 married 1805 to Isabel Linton C1780

Hi Ron,

Good news and bad news.

Good news is that I've encountered this Mercer family before. Checking back in my old emails I was in touch many years ago with three people who descend from this family: Maggie Deeth in Australia, Derek Chambers in England, and Jan Quinn also in Australia. Have you been in touch with these people? If not I'd be happy to give you their email addresses (email me directly about this), though they may not work any more.

The bad news is that I researched this Mercer family at the time, and concluded that there wasn't any strong evidence of a link between Michael Mercer and the Melrose Mercers in the late 1600s and early 1700s that I descend from. Indeed I thought it quite likely that Michael was an incomer to the parish from somewhere else. There was quite a lot of inter-parish migration in southern Scotland at this time, and he could easily have originated somewhere else outside Melrose parish.

[alba73]

Hello,
I'm not sure how old this post is but I may have the same Mercer relations as Jon.
I believe that Michael Mercer (Messer) may have come from the Crailing area.
I would love to compare notes. I believe there may be an older child born before Alexander for Michael and Isabel Mercer.
I have a Jane Messer born 1802 to Michael Messer and Isabel Milne.
Jane followed the  naming tradition with her family which makes me think theses are of the same family.
Jane eventually married someone from the Jedburgh area though they married in Canada.
I would love to hear from anyone with information on this family.
Thanks,
Andria

[vivdunstan]

I’ve had a hand-coded HTML site for my one-place studies for years, but it has become rather unwieldy in terms of structure and organisation, and it’s not the easiest thing for people to read.

So I’ve now switched to a WordPress-based site, which will have a much more structured approach to the resources that I put online. I am also hoping it will encourage me to add more!

The new site also incorporates the accompanying blog. All the previous blog entries have been imported.

There are redirection pages in place from the old website and the old blog.

But please find the new website at

https://melroseoneplacestudy.org/

Many thanks.

Viv