Burgess - Dunbar

[1310963]

Hi there one and all from a wet Devon.
Thanks for you thoughts. Definitely looking at two John Jeffrey's here, father and eldest son (brother of George) who became the doctor in Ayton. I will certainly contact the East Lothian Archive in Haddington and see if they can throw anymore light on the fact he was a burgess and what age he was likely to have been admitted. Certainly it seems someone older than 21 would be the norm.
I do have the entry from the Burgh Council Book for 25th June 1801 (B18/13/7) where he is admitted as an hereditary burgess but no memtion of age or what the heriditary connection was.
One further thing to mention is that Margaret Darling Jeffrey died in 1824 aged 43, she is buried at Dunbar.  In the 1851 and 1861 census returns John Senior is described as a widower, so it seems unlikely he ever re married.  I cannot find any trace of John Jeffrey senior in the 1841 Scottish or English census returns.