Visiting the Scottish Borders

I am making my second visit to the Scottish Borders in a little over a year (this is my sixth visit to the region). This time I am not alone. I am escorting a group on a trip that is a fund raiser for the Bovina United Presbyterian Church, arranged through Celtic Tours in Albany. Eleven hardy souls have joined me, with four having Bovina roots. Jim Hilson, Jean Parsons Merenberg and I have a common ancestor in Francis Coulter, born Francis Coltherd. The Hilson family also hails from the borders, specifically Hawick. Also traveling in the group are two people with Scottish Borders ancestry by marriage - Pat Thomas Parsons Miele and Jim's wife, Peg Hilson.

On November 1, 2014, we visited the Hawick Heritage Hub in Hawick. This is the regional archives for the borders area. They really rolled out the red carpet - or in this case cool documents that all contained recognizable Bovina surnames. The Archive Manager, Paul Brough, had found several documents listing Hilsons who very likely are related to the Bovina Hilsons. He also found a reference to a Glendenning getting in trouble for being in a brawl! Glendennings are ancestors of the Bovina Coulters. I also saw a map with accompanying documentation that included a reference to one of my Ormiston relations. The full title of the document was

State of the Process of Division of the Commonalty of Wilton, Robert Langlands of that Ilk v Henry, Duke of Buccleuch and others, with plan, with a date of 1764. It included a map and a large index, both of which have been cataloged, with a transcript and keyword searching on all proper names in the index. Below is the page from the index (which I saw only by luck when Paul turned the page) which references James Ormston from Boonraw. Below that is the map. I need to review more thoroughly the catalog entry to fully understand this record, but wanted to share it sooner rather than later.

Below is a session minute book from a Borders church, or, in Scotland, Kirk. I was struck by how similar the content and phrasing was to the session minutes of the Bovina Associate Presbyterian Church (the predecessor to the Bovina UP Church), though given the Scottish origins of the Bovina church, it should not be a big surprise.

The final document here was in the display case as we came in. We were struck by all the Bovina surnames. If you recognize anyone as an ancestor, let me know. It is a list of members of the Hawick Farmers Club.

To see the on-line catalog, go to http://www.calmview.eu/HUBCAT/CalmView/ and play around with the 'Advanced Search' feature. Be prepared to try different spellings of your ancestor's name, but it should be worth trying it out. I'm planning to work at it more when I get home.

For more information on the Hawick Heritage Hub, go to: http://www.heartofhawick.co.uk/heritagehub/

We continue our adventures in the Borders today by visiting three of the Borders Abbeys - Jedburgh, Kelso and Dryburgh (we saw the fourth one on Saturday). Then it is on to Edinburgh.



Bovina's Scottish Borders Origins

In preparation for my November visit to the Scottish Borders of Scotland, I thought I’d mention a few of the Bovina Families who came from there. I wrote about the Borders last September during a previous visit there. Go to http://bovinanyhistory.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-scottish-borders-and-connection-to.html to see that entry.

I’ve already written about the Coulter family in a previous blog entry. Go to October 17, 2010 blog entry for information about this family (http://bovinanyhistory.blogspot.com/2010/10/bovina-pioneers-francis-and-nancy.html).

Robert Gladstone, who was born in 1777 in Teviothead-Glednest, Scotland, married Ann Ray around 1802 and came to Bovina in 1817. They had eight children. The Gladstone family were members of the Associate Presbyterian Church but had a falling out with the church when dancing was held at their son Walter’s marriage to Isabella Biggar in 1834 (more information about this incident can be found in this blog’s entry for October 23, 2010 - http://bovinanyhistory.blogspot.com/2010/10/gladstones-and-biggars-clash-with.html).

The Hilson family’s roots go back to one John Hilson, who was born in Scotland in 1827, the son of Alexander and Elizabeth (Nesbit) Hilson. The names John and Alexander would continue through their descendants to the present day. The Hilsons came to Bovina relatively late in its history. John Hilson emigrated in 1850, landing in New York and coming directly to Bovina to settle. He farmed for a number of years before becoming a noted merchant in town, establishing his general store in 1867. The store he founded continued through his son Alexander, grandsons John and James and great grandsons Alex and Jack. (see the Bovina NY History blog entry concerning John ‘Old Jock’ Hilson and his death in 1896: http://bovinanyhistory.blogspot.com/2013/07/stories-from-bovinas-cemeteries-old.html)

Also emigrating to America and settling in Bovina was John’s brother William Hilson. He was not in Bovina all that long when he died at the age of 45 in 1856.

James Hoy was born in Scotland in 1745. Around the age of 30, he married Agnes Robertson, who came from Jedburgh, Roxburghshire. They had 6 children, three born in Scotland and three born in Washington County, NY. It was his grandson, John R. Hoy, born in 1831, who came to Bovina. John was a Civil War veteran, dying in Bovina in 1901. His son, David Fletcher Hoy, is the gentleman who did all the research on early Bovina families (see the blog entry for October 6 of this year for more on Davy Hoy).

David Laidlaw was born in the Scottish borders in 1785. He married Helen Knox Hart, also from the borders, in 1825. They had eight children, all born in Scotland. The family came to Bovina sometime after the birth of their last child in 1846. Helen died in 1855 a the age of 60, her husband five years later. David may have been related to Mrs. Thomas Miller (see Miller family information below). David’s grandson Adam had the farm where Marie Burns now lives.

Thomas Liddle was a native of Scotland, born in Liddlesdale, Roxburghshire in 1785. He emigrated to this country in his youth and settled in Bovina, where in 1804 he married Margaret Archibald, a native of Lanarkshire, Scotland. She was eight years his senior. They had eight children. Margaret died in 1857 at the age of 80, survived by Thomas, who lived another decade and died at the age of 83 in 1868. His farm was on Bovina road. It stayed in the family for three generations before it was sold out of the family.

Brothers David (b 1795) and William (b 1791) Miller settled in Bovina about ten to fifteen years apart. They were sons of Thomas Miller and his wife Agnes Laidlaw from Hawick, Scotland. Thomas was active in his local church near Hawick in a place called Roberton. He was for a number of years the ‘beadle’ of the church – basically a lay assistant for the minister. Thomas and Agnes had five chidren. As well as the aforementioned sons, David and William, there were two other sons, John and Berry Shaw, and one daughter, Christina (sometimes referred to as Christain). Berry Shaw and Christina also came to America about the same time as William, but John stayed in Scotland where many of his descendants can  be found today.

David came to America first. He settled in Bovina before 1819 and had a farm established by 1821 in the area of Bramley Mountain. He filed a declaration of intent to become a citizen on February 28, 1821 but didn’t apply to take his oath until May 29, 1840. David was married twice, first in Bovina in 1819 to Agnes Thomson, then, sometime after Agnes's death in 1829, to Isabella Turnbull. He had five children by his first wife and two daughters by his second. David Miller died in 1883 and is buried in Bovina.

William came to America in 1831, possibly traveling with his brother and sister, as well as his second wife, Isabella Dickson and his three children. He was a tenant farmer at Muselee, in the Scottish Borders before emigrating. He also purchased land on Bramley Mountain, starting with 100 acres, in 1833. William was active in the community, serving as a road commissioner for some time and was active in the United Presbyterian Church of Bovina. He died on January 29, 1870. His wife died on December 13, 1882, aged eighty years. Both are buried in Bovina. All of his children settled in Delaware County.

The Ormiston name is one of the prominent Scottish Borders names, believed to have originated from a place name in the borders. It is believed that the Bovina Ormiston's are descended from "the Black Laird," James Ormiston (1522-1573). He was one of the conspirators in the murder of Lord Darnley, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots. He was knighted by the Queen in May 1567, about 3 months after the murder. By December he had been convicted of treason and his estate was forfeited. Ormiston was captured at Jedburgh in 1573 and hanged in December of that year.

The first Ormiston to come to the United States was James' five-greats grandson, William Ormiston. He was born in Scotland in 1780 on a tenant farm called Bonran, not too far from Hawick. He married Jane Graham around 1801. About a year later, he came to America, staying for a time in Philadelphia where he had an uncle. Their first child was born there. By 1804, they were settled in Bovina where the rest of their seven children were born. William’s father pleaded with his son to come back to Scotland, but William showed no interest in doing so. Janet died in 1856 and William in 1864. They were both members of the Association Presbyterian Church and are buried in the old church cemetery at Reinertsen Hill Road. (For more on the Ormistons, go to http://www.dcnyhistory.org/familyormiston.html where you will find a couple of histories written by Lloyd Ormiston about his family. Lloyd was an uncle to the Davidson brothers.)

William Richardson was born in in Tiviothead, Roxburghshire in 1828. He came to the United States in 1849. He lived with the David Laidlaw family and worked as a farm laborer. In 1862, he enlisted in the 144th NY Infantry and served until the end of the Civil War. He married Isabella Sloan and would have three children with her before her death in 1874. Their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, is the mother of Isabell Irvine Russell. An aside – when I made my first visit to the Scottish Borders I hired a taxi to take me to the Roberton church where my ancestor, Thomas Miller (mentioned earlier), had served as beadle. There was something in the driver’s speech pattern that immediate made me think of Isabell Russell. I couldn’t explain exactly what, but it seems that Isabell likely picked up this pattern from her Grandfather Richardson. She would have known him into her adulthood – he died a few months after her marriage to Cecil Russell in 1916.

This postcard shows a house in Scotland that Richardson once lived in. The note on the back is by David Hoy, obtained during his 1908 visit to Scotland.

William Storie was born in Roxburghshire in 1761. By 1802, he was in Bovina and married to Mary McCune, a native of what is now Northern Ireland. They had six children. William died in 1814, when his youngest child was six months old.

Walter Stott was born in Scotland in 1771. He married Jennet Ormiston, who was born in 1765 in Wilton, Roxburghshire. They had three children, all born in Scotland. They emigrated to the United States. Their sons Walter and George both settled in Bovina. Walter married Scottish native Mary Neish while George married Bovina native Ellen Storie. For more on the Walter and Mary Stott family, look at this blog entry for July 21, 2014 (http://bovinanyhistory.blogspot.com/2014/07/stories-from-bovina-cemeteries-stott.html).

The Strangeway family comes from the eastern area of the Scottish borders near Berwick. Christopher Strangeway was born in Allanton in 1814. He came to America with his father Thomas probably when he was a teenager. The family settled in Middletown, NY. Christopher bought a farm on present day Route 28 in Bovina. Married to Margaret Thompson in 1836, they would have seven children. Among Christopher and Margaret descendants are Ruth Coulter Parsons, Celia Coulter and Jack and Alex Hilson.

There are other natives of Scotland among Bovina’s early settlers, though many were not from the borders region. If I am missing a Bovina family from Scotland’s borders, let me know.

The Scottish Borders and the Connection to Bovina

As I write this, I am staying in the town of Hawick in the Scottish Borders.  My interest in the town and the area is that it is from where my Miller ancestors came – this is my fifth visit to the borders region.  So it seems appropriate to put some information into the Bovina NY History blog about the Scottish borders while I am visiting there.  This entry is a slightly edited version of what recently appeared in the Bovina U.P. Church newsletter, so it will look familiar to some of you.

Many of the earlier settlers in what became the Town of Bovina came from the area of Scotland known as “The Borders.” Bovina families with such surnames as Ormiston, Johnston, Miller, Elliott, Thomson, Armstrong, Graham, Coulter, Crosier, Scott, Irvine, Jardine, Murray, Turnbull and Hilson all had origins in the Scottish Borders. People from this area of Scotland have had a major influence in the United States. George MacDonald Fraser noted this influence in the introduction to his book, The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers, with a reference to the 1969 Presidential Inauguration and the fact that three prominent border families, Johnson, Nixon and Graham (the last reference being to Rev. Billy Graham). I recommend reading Fraser’s book. It’s a long read, but really helps understand the development of the character of families from that region.

Given that the borders region was a popular route for invading armies from England and Scotland, the area was restless for hundreds of years, torn by a vicious cycle of raids, reprisals and blood feuds. The people who survived all of this had to be ruthless and resourceful. Prominent in the story of the borders are the Border Reivers – essentially guerrilla soldiers and professional cattle thieves. This was a region in which clan loyalty could trump loyalty to your nation. Peace of a sort only came with the union of the English and Scottish crowns in 1603 when James VI of Scotland became James I of England. He came down hard on the reivers – deporting a number of them and changing the administration of the region to ultimately blunt their power. Peace came to the borders, but at a price.

Many of Bovina’s Scottish families came in the late 18th and early 19th centuries – about 200 years after the end of the reivers. Many of these immigrants came from or near Hawick, a mill town in Roxburghshire noted for various kinds of knitwear. Francis Coulter, for whom Coulter Brook was named, came to the United States around 1800 (though Francis’s last name in Scotland was not Coulter but Coltherd – it changed after he came to Bovina). David and William Miller, sons of Thomas Miller came to the United States separately, David in 1815, William in 1830. Thomas was the beadle of the Roberton church, just a few miles from Hawick. The Ormistons came from nearby Wilton and were one of the more prominent Scottish borders families. John Hilson, one of Bovina’s somewhat later arrivals, came directly from Hawick in the 1850s. Gilbert Jardine also was a native of Hawick.

One of the reasons I am making this journey is to explore a fund raising trip for the Bovina U.P. Church to the Scottish borders in the late fall of 2014. The trip will be coordinated through a company called Celtic Tours, based in Albany. I have done a dozen trips through Celtic since 2006. My good friend Noreen Yost has led these trips and will be leading this one. Her trips are very popular. When you meet her, you’ll understand why. Each trip I have done with her raises money for a local church, library or museum. For each person going on the trip, $50 will be donated to the Bovina United Presbyterian Church.

Pricing details for this trip will not be worked out until January, the biggest challenge being the airfare (fuel surcharges and taxes are often more than the ticket price itself and have recently gone up substantially). The trip will be seven days/six nights and will include three nights in the Scottish Borders and three nights in Edinburgh. The Scottish Borders do not receive the tourist traffic that Edinburgh and the Scottish Highlands do, but the region has much to offer. Residents from around the Catskills will be struck by the resemblance of the terrain to their home mountains.

One of the events being considered specifically for those interested in family history will be some kind of ‘meet and greet’ event with members of the Borders Family History Society. Beyond that a number of sites are being considered for the itinerary, starting with the four magnificent ruined abbeys at Melrose, Dryburgh, Jedburgh, and Kelso. These abbeys date from the 12th century and are striking reminders of the turbulence that the borders experienced over 500 years. They were destroyed and rebuilt several times before their final destruction in the 16th century, caused partly by the reformation and partly by Henry VIII’s invasion in the 1540s, known as the ‘rough wooing.’ Another attraction is Abbottsford, the home of Scottish author Sir Walter Scott (in Bovina’s early days, every school library had at least one of his books on its shelves). Abbottsford just underwent a major renovation and will be well worth a visit – and Scott himself is buried at Dryburgh Abbey. Another possible site is Traquair House, the oldest continuously occupied house in Scotland, dating from 1107. Also being considered for the day we travel to Edinburgh is a stop at the Rosslyn Chapel, made famous in the DaVinci Code. In Edinburgh, there will be plenty to see – Edinburgh Castle, the Royal Mile, the Palace of Holyrood (famous for its association with Mary Queen of Scots) and Arthur’s Seat, the extinct volcano that overlooks Scotland’s capital. Or you can take advantage of some of the research opportunities there, including the National Records of Scotland, which is the recently merged General Records Office of Scotland and the National Archives of Scotland. For the days we are not traveling to and from the airport or to Edinburgh, you can join the group or go off and do your own thing. One other option under consideration will allow you at the end of this trip to exercise the option to visit Northern Ireland (from where Moses Burns, the ancestor of the Burns and other Bovina families, came).

So stay tuned for further developments. If you are seriously interested in this trip, please let me know at bovinahistorian@gmail.com or at 607-832-4609.

And today I am off with Marjorie Gavin, who lives here in Hawick, to check out a couple of things related to the planned trip next year.  Marjorie and I think we are distantly related through the Laidlaws and Grieves, but we’re still working to prove that.

And here's a picture I took on the 23rd on my way to Hawick. This is the main square in Selkirk - the statue is to Sir Walter Scott - highly revered in the borders.