my gr gramps first wife died at 50 then got remarried,
so my gr was born when his dad was age 55..
he told him we r related to th earl of melvlle.
his dad died when he was 13 so he never really got to ask him about it,
. so we didnt ake much stock in it, and this got passed down to me
and i originally discounted it. had our last known immigration point
been kellie castle in the east neuk,
i wouldnt have thought twice but ..
lo 'n behold after searching i found out
we end up originting from collessie.
which is a stones throw to the earls mansion house,
then i found james melvilles tomb was well known
in collessie. i could literally stand on jamesm melville
the famous chroniclers tomb and launch a potato launcher volley
to the melvill home farm in the earls backyard.
its about two miles as the spud flies...
so its always been intriguing but im over the delusion
of being related to the earl bcz most melvilles from the area share a common past
w the earl without being directly related just by georaphy alone..
my pet theory for awhile was that i was related to
william henry leslie-melville the east india co. dir,
and that we just dropped the leslie title since we were
not going to be in line for the title after john thornton and ready to leave for canada.
him and his brother Robert seem to have missing pedigrees in the peerage.their timelines fit so..
i tried to find a link to the east india co ship 'agamemnon' from that time
and trading between ports in canada and india ,hoping to find a reason for going to canada
but there was no evidence. they made it through the potato famine but may have become destitute economically so had to pick up and leave-, the timeline fits but the proof doesnt, instead we end up being lime kiln workers and weavers
I always go back to think maybe my trail will lead back further to younger brother of the earl of leven (cadet branch) or Andrew the reformer but it looks not likely!