Hello All,
Having been given some interesting information from various kind individuals, I have been chipping away at various records from a part of Scotland that I don't really know much about - Kinross.
I don't think that many researchers really like to expose the skeletons in the closet when sharing the details about their ancestors, but, what the Hell, how many Family Tree's don't have an illegitimate birth in it somewhere?
DDJJake, our good friend, now residing in Cyprus, was able to point me in the right direction initially, and then Monica and Sancti came to my rescue confirming and expanding that information and giving me the opportunity to look at the whole picture from a different aspect.
It would appear, (I feel as if I'm walking on hot coals, so I'm treading very carefully!), that Margaret Hay, who married one of my Hepburn ancestors, David Hepburn, on the 26th of February, 1815, was born in 1779 around the Rumbling Bridge area of Kinross. Although I don't have a really good knowledge of this pretty part of Scotland, I do know that Rumbling Bridge is a mere spit away from Cleish in Kinross. Cleish, of course is only about 6 miles away from Ballingry - an area that I'm very familiar with, since a number of my close family lived there when I was just a wee bit younger!
Margaret would appear to have had a terrible start to her life since her mother, Janet More (or Moore?), died giving birth to her. Although her birth was illegitimate, it is assumed that her father was John Hay. I simply couldn't resist taking a look at yet another tragic episode in the lives of my ancestors, and so started to comb through what records I could find using the "tools" available to me.
Was Janet More (or Moore?), the daughter of John Moore? There is an Extracted Christening Record showing that a Janet was christened at Fossoway & Tulliebole in Kinross on the 17th of October, 1756. If this young lady was indeed the mother of Margaret Hay, then she would have only been about 24 years of age when she died in childbirth in 1779.
That was only the start of my search, and even though I have little hope in exposing the whole story, I believe that it is worth the effort to try to give some pieces of information to other researchers who may be researching the descendants of these individuals.
I will continue with this interesting story in my next posting.
Kind Regards,
Tom.