Buchans of Borthwick

The following story was written as part of "1,500 to 2,000 biography" exercise. Some of this information can be found  in this post  where images provide more general interest. Uncovering the facets of a life lived very long ago is a mixture of luck, techniques and context. Robert Buchan [b1813] emerged in piecemeal from what was only a name for me for over two decades. He was named on his son’s Victorian marriage certificate in 1860, another Robert. How I found which Robert Buchan senior was mine in Scotland through DNA is described here . Even finding him quickly through DNA brought a context. I’d found that ancestors of five of my matches were siblings George and Isabella Buchan, and that the informant on George’s death certificate was his brother Robert. Two years later, let me reveal his life in a standard chronological biography, that mixes the personal, familial, biological and historical contexts, somewhat like a tossed salad. ⇝⇝⇝⇝ Robert Buchan was born in 1813, pos...

Reconnectin g to my Scottish roots has spiralled out of control!  Firstly I just wanted to find the parents of my x2 great-grandfather Robert Buchan who left Scotland aged about 18 years, for Melbourne, Australia in 1852. After all I had their names from Robert’s marriage and death certificates in Australia – Robert Buchan and Janet “McCray”. Yet I could not find their marriage, their child Robert's baptism or a death record for either of this couple. There were plenty of Robert Buchans, but which was mine? As you'll see by the end of this post, I have now embarked on a world-wide Buchan DNA study, which by necessity needs a complete family tree down to the present day. In 2022 I focused on this question using the DNA of my father’s first cousin, Pat, a lady born in 1924. Robert and Janet were her x2 great grandparents, as she was a generation closer to them than I was. The techniques used to ‘isolate’ DNA that came from Robert and Janet were to: 1) build a genetic network o...

  There is a great new way to delve into the Kirk records of Scotland. It is called 'Full text search' on FamilySearch, and is powered by AI. It took me a while to delve into these as they are only available at an affiliate library of this church. Fortunately Family History ACT, my local group, is one such library.  You need a free account, and then I typed in 'Buchan' in the keyword search and 'Borthwick, Midlothian, Scotland' - after all that is the name of the blog! 490 records appeared. I was particularly looking for kirk session minutes or accounts. It was not long before this record appeared, dated 3 November 1821: Excerpt from Borthwick minutes Nov 1821, image courtesy of FamilySearch I think this reads: "Item 5 Widow Buchan - has 7 children at home, the oldest son gets 9 shillings/per week constant at Vogrie - another is employed occasionally at Women's Work - 5 are unable to work. She has 2 cows and £15 in Bank. The meeting having taken the ab...

When I travelled to Newlandrig, on the day I came down with Covid, I was probably missing the subtle clues about the landscape and the built environment. Helen was driving me around the locations associated with Robert Buchan b1813. Most of these places are significant for many other Buchan descendants too.  The Buchans were in Newlandrig by 1808, when an infant son died and was buried in Newbattle Churchyard. They were there in the 1921 census, barely. We drove along the Dalkeith Bypass (A68) to turn off onto Main St (B6372). Soon after the turnoff was Dewarton, and I really can't remember it, where the Buchans lived from about 1800-1804/5. Newlandrig is half way between Pathead and Gorebridge. It  is about 10 minutes drive from Dalkeith, and perhaps 20 minutes from Edinburgh by car. Being tucked in the middle of a rural landscape, only a minor road passes anywhere near it. However it is a pretty place, with wide open fields on either side, and patches of dense trees that evo...

Buried with our Buchans in Newbattle Churchyard are five other people. Four of those are named Brown.  Refresh your memory of the lair records .  Is there a reason why they were buried across the same plots as the Buchans? When I found that three were related to each other, and the stillborn Brown child was also probably part of this family, I began to suspect that there just may be a link. The first child I looked at was named Janet McCree Brown and you can image why her name caught my eye. She was only 18 months old when she died of Croup on 13 April 1889. She was buried on 15 April 1889.  She lived at Hunterfield, as did the two other Browns. Hunterfield is a hamlet about 2 miles from Newlandrig, and is the closest settlement to our village. Janet's parents were revealed to be Abram Brown and Mary Falconer. I then bought this couple's marriage certificate of 31 December 1880. They married in Stobhill, another nearby small village near Gorebridge. I was thrilled to see ...

My Buchan ancestor came to Australia in 1852. Buchans have been probably been on the move for a very long time. Our DNA confirms that the Buchan family have ancestral roots in Scotland, meaning they were there between 500-1000 years ago. [Many 'Scots' find out that their DNA suggests Irish or sometimes English or European ethnicity].  A study such as mine can document  where  Buchans went, and  when  they went. Social history might tell us why they emigrated when they did. I have traced the movements of all descendants of George Buchan and Jean Johnston until modern privacy laws kick in. Scots, like all peoples of the British Isles, moved primarily to North America (USA - 33% and Canada 48%), to Australia - 76% and New Zealand - 70%, to South Africa - 3%, to countries in South America, to the Indian subcontinent as well as western Europe, Scandinavia and Central America. The darker the colour in the map below, the higher that place's current population is though...

I'm a medical doctor so I find cause of death an interesting and powerful part of understanding the past. But an individual's information tells us about something that might have been bad luck or random or .... But what if we could combine the information about why people died over the centuries, across family lines, in different places and whether young or old? We would get an understanding of the forces acting on the lives of our ancestors and their families.  While in Scotland I spent a day at the National Records Office in Edinburgh, extracting the information from all death certificates of the descendants of Robert Buchan b1813. When I go back next year I will do the same for the other siblings; George b1802 will be the doosey. Up until 1855, information on causes of death was dependant on either the clergyman recording this on a burial register or cemetery records. Examples of each of these from our family are: 1. Excerpt from Old Parish Registers Deaths for Parish 695, N...