May 25th, 2009

Linlithgow burgesses

In 1840, two unlikely branches of my family met. The Bensons from Midlothian were powdermakers, miners and labourers. This group of families lived for many years in and around Glencorse. The local cemetery is stuffed with their remains, if you’ll pardon the expression. It’s easy to go sideways in the family (Robert, whose brother was Francis and who had young Francis and so on and so on) but not as simple to go backwards. The earliest person I have is the wife, Isabella, of a Benson who would have been born around 1770.

But it’s the very first Robert Benson who married a Spence. Or to be accurate, a Thom. And Margaret, the bride, was from a long line of burgesses in the Royal Burgh of Linlithgow.

When I began researching this family line, I discovered that I wasn’t alone – contacts flooded in with stacks of information.  Sadly, a lot of it turned out to be contradictory (more…)

Apr 14th, 2009

Mors

In my family history research using old church registers, I’ve been coming across some marvellous archaic terms.  One is a mortcloth.  First large mortcloth, second large mortcloth, first small morcloth, second small mortcloth and even velvit [velvet] mortcloth.  The word appears on death records and has a price attached.  In my ignorance, I thought it might be the cost of a shroud to bury a person in, but I’m only half right. Googling it, I found this.

A mortcloth (from the Latin word mors, mortis, meaning ‘death’) was a form of pall, i.e. a large cloth (usually black) thrown over a coffin or corpse at a funeral. Mortcloths were kept by kirk (more…)

Apr 13th, 2009

I was here

After a few years of neglect, I’ve gone back to doing my family history research.  It costs a fortune (few data resources are free these days, sigh) and takes up inordinate amounts of time. Now I’ve got a gedcom file (afficiandos will understand) that comprises 1242 individuals, all related to me in some way.  My direct ancestors (all those Great Grandparents to the power of n) amount to 104 people, stretching back into the 1600s.  Their blood (and genes) runs in my veins.  Almost without exception, they were dirt poor and undistinguished.  Their lives must have been harder than I can even imagine.  They’d be disdainful of the soft life I lead.  Some of the women are especially interesting – brave, tough women who brought up housefuls of children without a man, or bore a child while rounding the Cape of Good Hope.

In the midst of all this data-gathering and detective work (that’s why it’s fascinating, of course, it’s your very own detective story and you have to pick up clues where you are and piece them together if you can) I sometimes stop to think why I’m doing it.  I know that it’s important enough to me that I’m thinking of putting it (more…)