Jun 11th, 2009
Can ye direct me tae Willie Law’s tannery?
On Ancestry the other day, I came across a page of Pigot’s Directory 1825-26 for Linlithgow which relates to some of my folk. Apart from name-spotting, it’s a fascinating social document. Linlithgow was a bustling town in the 1820s, although the leather and shoe industry that had brought prosperity to its denizens was well on the decline. The centre of the town was the High Street, off which were Vennels and Wynds. The kirk of St Michael’s, in whose kirkyard many of my ancestors lie, was situated just off High Street and behind it, facing the Loch, was the ancient remains of Linlithgow Palace.
The town layout today isn’t so very different and, coincidentally, in The Vennel, one of the lanes snuggling behind the High Street, a cousin of mine has (more…)
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…)
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