Laird & McLuckie

[Plaidgal]

Hi. I just found rootschat and the first chat I found was about my ancestors Robert Laird and Margaret Cowan. I have the same questions about the 13 year gap, the appearance of Agnes McCluckie without any records, Abraham's records. I am wondering if anyone has found anything new. Thanks. R.

[thesws]

Hello,

I have tried to research these Lairds beyond Alexander Laird b1580 and appearing in church of Scotland records in the parish of Eassie, Perthshire (less than a mile from Castle Glamis) and have been doing some guessing after lots of search results were showing 'Laird' as a title rather than as a surname. With having a few Alexander Lairds in my tree, I noticed that the Irwin/Irvine Lairds of Drum had a tradition of naming the oldest male Alexander. Although not convinced, I followed Sir Alexander 10th Laird of Drum b1596 back and found a well documented line back through the Lairds of Drum, Aberdeenshire. They'd been granted lands up there by Robert the Bruce and were first known in Dumfriesshire. Actually that line goes back to King Duncan via King Malcolm III and Saint Margaret, then a long list of Ui Neil monarchs of Ireland. I'd be interested to know what you think of all this, what with it being Aberdeen, not Perthshire and a somewhat tenuous link with the uncertainty of birth date (1580/1596 - same person or father and son?).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Irvine

I then researched more recent Laird wives to see if I could get anything else to perhaps lend weight to the Irwin idea and found a lot of interesting stuff. The Cowans (mentioned earlier) and Ruthven (via a Murdoch wife) are particularly interesting. The Ruthvens are linked to Huntingtower Castle...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntingtower_Castle

It seems they lost their castle to the Crown, only for it to eventually fall into the hands of the Cowan family (who farmed there up until 2002, apparently). Margaret Cowan b 1688 married Robert Laird b1687 (who's gg1 was Agnes Ruthven b1611) - therefore it would seem those Ruthvens retook their castle through marriage.

I have been able to trace all Laird wife lines back quite far but it is frustrating not knowing for certain what this Alexander Laird b1580's story was.

[Forfarian]

I'd be interested to know what you think of all this, what with it being Aberdeen, not Perthshire and a somewhat tenuous link with the uncertainty of birth date (1580/1596 - same person or father and son?).

I'm afraid it all looks very dubious to me.

For a start, the parish of Eassie and Nevay is in the County of Angus, not the County of Perth, next door to the parish of Glamis in which Glamis Castle (which is never called Castle Glamis) is situated. See https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/ANS/EassieAndNevay for details. So if your research is based on sources that say Eassie is in Perthshire or refer to Castle Glamis, then I would have to question the reliability of other information in those sources.

The other thing is, don't ever guess or assume unless you annotate it so that you and anyone else reading what you have found knows it is not proved, and never believe anything you find online unless it's an image of an original document.

In particular I don't think you can equate the surname Laird with the Irvines of Drum, even on the basis that they called their eldest son Alexander. Alexander is one of the four commonest given names in Scotland and consequently is not as useful as a genealogical tool as more unusual names, or regular alternations of Alexander and a less common name.

By the late 16th century surnames were well established, and Laird as a surname is mentioned in documents as early as the 13th century. It seems to me extremely unlikely that an Irvine of Drum would change his surname to Laird, but it's not quite impossible, of course.

Incidentally I looked in Scotland's People for Al* L*r*d* baptised before 1600, and there is no listing there of such a baptism in Eassie. There is a baptism of Elizabeth, daughter of James Laird, in 1737, and no more Lairds until the 1850s, when David Laird and Jean Ann Morton had a son David and a daughter Elizabeth. According to the 1851 census this David Laird was from Inverarity. There are no records of Ir*in* in Eassie, and no baptisms of Al* L*r*d* anywhere in Scotland in 1580. The earliest one is in the parish of Dunbarney in Perthshire in 1611.

[thesws]

I presume you are presuming I meant a baptism record for Alexander Laird b1580. I have his will.
I also have Alexander Laird b1611's baptism in Larbert, but I'm not sure of any link and Dunbarney isn't the part of Perthshire that is near Castle Glamis.

[Forfarian]

You are perfectly correct in saying that Larbert isn't anywhere near Glamis Castle, which is not in Perthshire but in Angus.

Neither are there any records in the index at Scotland's People of any baptisms of Alexander Lairds in Eassie at any time before the start of statutory registration in 1855.

Is the 'will' you refer to the one dated 1639 in Cassiltoun, parish of Essie? I see that it is a testament dative, which means that he did not leave an actual will; if he had done so it would have been described as a testament testamentar. Testaments dative tell you only what the estate was worth and to whom confirmation was granted.

Where did the birth date of 1580 come from?

[thesws]

That was Dunbarney, not Larbert. I have corrected it. Alexander Laird born 17th March 1611.

Yes it looks to be Dative type, it looks like it says, "Testamantium Dativum L....". It is definitely the 1639 document. I cannot decipher much of what is written over its two pages.

I think the 1580 Date of Birth for Alexander Laird was from a record on ancestry .com, if I recall correctly it was listed as "Alexr. Laird". I'll have a look.

[Forfarian]

Yes it looks to be Dative type, it looks like it says, "Testamantium Dativum L....". It is definitely the 1639 document. I cannot decipher much of what is written over its two pages.

Is it all in Latin, then? That bit is definitely Latin.

I think the 1580 Date of Birth for Alexander Laird was from a record on ancestry .com, if I recall correctly it was listed as "Alexr. Laird". I'll have a look.

Hmmm. Sounds as if someone was guessing that he was about 50 when he died in 1639.

It occurred to me that even though Alexander Laird is described as 'in' Cassiltoun rather that 'of' Cassiltoun, there might be something in the index to the Angus Registers of Sasines, of which I happen to have a copy. There are a couple of Lairds, but they don't shed any light:
Laird, James, in Meigle, formerly in Potento (S.3) IX.296 (bis); X.98; his spouse, See Gray, Jean.
Laird, James, in Newmilne, (S.3) X.175.
Gray, Jean, spouse of James Laird in Potento, (S.3) IX.296
(S.3) is the 3rd Series. Vol IX covers 23 March 1692 to 20 August 1698 and Vol X covers 23 August 1692 to 12 December 1700. There are three Sasines mentioning James Laird in Meigle, one of which also mentions his wife Jean Gray, and one Sasine mentioning James Laird in Newmilne. No mentions of Alexander Laird or Castleton of Eassie, and they are half a century too late to be relevant. I don't know which Newmilne is referred to, or where Potento was.

Meigle is in Perthshire. There could be references in the index to the Perthshire sasines, but I don't have a copy of that.

[Rosinish]

I found reference to "Fullerton and Potento" which may help to locate it? on;

https://www.oldscottish.com/meigle.html

Annie

[Forfarian]

I now know where Potento was.

It's listed in various early records accessible at www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk that make it clear that it was in the parish of Meigle, but it isn't listed in the Ordnance Survey Name Books on the same site.

James Stobie's map of Perthshire in 1783 shows Potento a little way north-east of Meigle village, on the left bank of the Dean Water between Dean Bridge and a large and distinctive meander upstream of it. https://maps.nls.uk/view/74400314 and zoom in to find Meigle in the lower right part of the map.

The first edition of the Odnance Survey, surveyed in 1863, shows a farm at the same place called Cardean. https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=56.5954&lon=-3.1556&layers=5&b=1

If you click on the blue button in the box on the second map, and slide it to the left, you can see that Potento/Cardean has disappeared, replaced by a bit of woodland.