Old Parish Registers Query - Illegitimacy and Incest

[Rosinish]

Peter & Patrick are interchangeable which may help others.

Annie

[PatriciaJH]

Thank you!  In fact, Peter-of-Cruden's marriage record had him as Patrick, so this is helpful.  I've noticed that Scottish records are very casual about names, and that Jean could be Jennie, Jane, Jeanie, and even Annie, but hadn't come across this one. 

Interestingly, Family Search turns up a brother to Peter: Charles Sangster, born in Cruden on 15 Nov 1752, son of Thomas Sangster and Margaret Crookshank, so the first mention by the Church in 1752 must have been prompted by baby Charles.

(This is sourced by FamilySearch's transcriptions of original sources, called an IGG; they're of varying quality, but this lot does seem to be in line with the originals.)   Here's the family with Charles included. (Free signup.) 
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/family/KHWB-JH2

[cmsmck]

I have been reading your thread with interest. I am descended from the Freeland's from Whinnyfold, Cruden and wondered if and how you are connected with them?

Many thanks.

[jonwicken]

I have been reading your thread with interest. I am descended from the Freeland's from Whinnyfold, Cruden and wondered if and how you are connected with them?

Many thanks.

My most recent Freeland ancestor is my 5x great grandmother Mary Freeland who married Alexander Lawrence|Laurenson in Cruden in 1778.

Mary Freeland was baptised Cruden 1756 and was the daughter of George Freeland and Janet Smith who married in Cruden in 1755.

George Freeland was baptised in Cruden in 1725 who was my 6x great grandfather and was the son of Robert Freeland.

I have a DNA match on ancestry with a Rosemary S****a who is a descendant of George's brother Alexander (also baptised in 1725) which appears to prove my genetic descent from Robert Freeland.

Robert Freeland was therefore my 7x great grandfather. This is also the earliest genetic ancestor I have so far identified. He must have been born before c1704 and appears to have been alive in 1760.

He was a witness to the Cruden baptism of Alexander Freeland son of Alexander Freeland as Robert Freeland Senior in 1755. As 'Robert Freeland Younger' was witness to baptism of Janet, daughter William Freeland in 1760, Robert senior is therefore assumed to have been alive at this time.

What is your descent from the Freeland family?

Best wishes,
Jon

[cmsmck]

Good afternoon Jon

Thank you for your message. I too am related to Rosemary; Rosemary's Great Grandfather John was a brother of my Great Great Grandfather Robert, both being sons of John Freeland and Margaret Stephen. So that means that we are related too!  Any information that I have, I'm happy to share with you.

Kind regards

Catriona

[jonwicken]

Great to hear from you! I rather suspect that Robert Freeland's assumed to be twin sons born in 1725 were identical and that might explain how I have a match with Rosemary.

I cannot get further back than Robert Freeland who must have been born before c1704. Some trees have him as being born elsewhere but I think that is just someone just finding the same name and putting them together.

I would love to know what you have on the earlier Freelands.

Best wishes,
Jon

[jonwicken]

I have had a look in the text of the 1696 Poll of Cruden that can be read here:

https://digital.nls.uk › dcn6PDF
List of pollable persons within the shire of Aberdeen. 1696

The only Freiland I could see is this one. So maybe they were Robert's parents.

[cmsmck]

Hi Jon

I too have always assumed that John Freilland and Margaret Rait were the "start" of the Freeland family in the area - parents of Robert and George Freeland, both of whom must have been born about 1700 (as George had an illegitimate son in 1716 and both Robert and George had children about 1724/25). There is a family legend that came down to me that the Freeland's were originally from Denmark. One day a Danish ship was shipwrecked off of Whinnyfold with a Freeland onboard. He was saved by the locals and eventually married one of them and settled in the area. Given that John Freilland was the only person in the whole of Aberdeenshire in the poll tax of 1696 who had a name like Freeland, it wouldn't take much to convince me that John Freilland could be that shipwrecked person!

You mentioned that you assume that Robert had twin sons - that is a possibility but there is also a possibility that there were several children who were all christened together but who were not the same age. I have found numerous cases in my family researching where there were four or five children of the same parents were all baptised at the same time, but they were of different ages - not sure the reasoning behind that, whether there wasn't a Minister in the parish and then all the children were baptised when a new Minister arrived, or whether family circumstances meant that children couldn't be baptised immediately, perhaps because the Father was at sea for months on end(?); they were very often baptised a few days or a couple of weeks after the baby was born, probably something to do with the high mortality rate of babies and the feeling that they would not get to Heaven if they were not baptised and then died??)  A fascinating subject in itself!

Happy to give you any information on the family that I can help with.

Catriona

[jonwicken]

Hi Catriona,

I love the shipwrecked story! I have seen that a Netherlands version of the surname was Vreeland, so perhaps the Danish was similar?

This is the correct link to the 1696 Aberdenshire poll for others reading this that are interested: https://digital.nls.uk/dcn6/8038/80388886.6.pdf

Looking at the 1725 baptisms of George and Alexander (sons of Robert), John Freeland was a witness/sponsor. This adds weight to the fact that Robert might be his son. However wouldn't it be expected that one of these sons was called John?

In fact George (Robert's assumed brother and hypothetical son of John) did not name any of his children born between 1724 and 1744 John. This seems a bit irregular to me given Scottish naming patterns and indeed naming patterns of the time.

However we know John Freeland was a relative as he was a witness/sponsor at that 1725 baptism. I have looked at the other early 1720s baptisms for Freeland children in Cruden and can find only one Freeland witness/sponsor in these baptisms, that of this John Freeland in 1725.

I absolutely know that sometimes children were baptised together, but I haven't found this for my lines in Cruden parish. I just feel that if Robert and Alexander were identical twins it would explain how I am able to identify an ancestor as far back as Robert Freeland. Let's see what turns up!

There is an Ann Freeland in Ellon who appears to have married twice, firstly to Alexander Cruden in 1722 and then to William Dicky in 1723. She appears to have died in 1724. She is the only other Freeland in Aberdeenshire for the period 1650 to 1750 in the registers so is presumably a sister of George and Alexander.

Have you done a DNA test? On ancestry a have quite a few DNA matches to descendants of James Freeland who was born in Ireland late 1600s, but whose family were apparently Scottish and moved to Massachusetts. Have you come across these in your research at all?

More on them here: http://mymaineancestry.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-sutton-freelands.html

All for now,
Jon