Did we come from Dalkeith?

No definite records identify the parents of George Buchan and Jean Johnston. Both were born when baptism records did exist in the parishes of Midlothian, but an unknown proportion of baptisms were never recorded. Similarly a marriage record in Midlothian has not been found. Perhaps it was an irregular marriage, made outside the auspices of any church. I know many people have looked for these records over the years.

Nevertheless Buchan is not a particularly common name in Midlothian, in contrast to Johnston. As part of looking into Buchans born throughout Scotland (see Buchans in Old Parish Registers), I paid particular attention to the those families geographically close to Borthwick. 

Below is a table noting the number and time span of baptisms of Buchans in Midlothian in the Old Parish Registers. The top 6 parishes are largely Edinburgh and its associated parishes and ports, and Inveresk is of course coastal. Apart from these 17 parishes, there are 20 parishes with absolutely no Buchan baptisms.

I then tried to find descendants of these families through all the usual methods - ScotlandsPeople and online trees. I was able to connect all the families in red above into a single family beginning with Thomas Buchan and Janet Johnson who married in Dalkeith in 1702.

Location of rural parishes in Midlothian.

Liberton

This parish lies to the immediate south-east of all the Edinburgh Parishes. Here are found the earliest Buchan records in the Old Parish Records outside Edinburgh. Two baptisms were recorded for children of Thomas Buchan and Janet Eckford: Robert on 15 April 1660 and John on 1 August 1669. A later child, Robert, was baptised in St Cuthbert Parish on 19 September 1675. There is no information about Thomas's occupation.

Jane Buchan gave birth to a son Robert in Liberton who was baptised on 26 March 1704. The next baptism in Liberton does not occur till William in 1747. He is a later child in a family that lived in Lasswade initially but then moved to Liberton. This is a big family in the OPR whose members over 3-4 generations variably live in either Liberton or Lasswade.

Charles Buchan and Margaret Lawson as parents of this family were married in Dalkeith on 30 June 1727. Given the lack of continuity of this lineage, I shall leave them to look into Dalkeith where Charles himself was born.

Dalkeith

The village and parish of Dalkeith was the major population centre in rural Midlothian. It grew from the 12th century Dalkeith Castle, with settlement on a plateau between the North and South Esk rivers. The Duke of Buccleach was the major landowner, and converted Dalkeith Castle to Dalkeith Palace in the late 16th century.

One of the earliest rural marriages outside Edinburgh occurred in Dalkeith between Thomas Buchan and Janet Thomson on 30 October 1702. Their children were:

1. Charles baptised 8 August 1703; he married Margaret Lawson and moved to Lasswade and Liberton
2. John baptised on 12 August 1705
3. Euphrem baptised on 8 February 1708 and buried 1710
4. James baptised on 10 December 1710; he married twice, firstly to Anne/Agnes Smith and secondly Katherine Cockburn. All up he had ten children and several can be followed through to the 1800s. We shall see that the sole family in Newbattle had a James as the father. OPR suggest that he had two sons named James, the first baptised in 1744, who was buried in 1745 and another in 1753.

Thomas Buchan married Agnes Yuille in Dalkeith on 12 March 1714. His wife Janet Thomson was buried on 19 June 1713 in Dalkeith, so it is very likely this is the same man. Five children are identifiable to this couple, twins Agnes and Elizabeth (died 1719) in 1716 and Elizabeth in 1724 (died 1725), and sadly two boys named Thomas who died on the day of their births in 1715 and 1721. An Agnes Buchan with associated name Thomas Buchan died in 1732 in Dalkeith. This may have been Thomas's second wife or his daughter.

Another Thomas had a child in Dalkeith. This was Thomas married to Jean Johnson who had a son James Buchan born in Dalkeith in 1732. A marriage for these parents wasn't found, nor other siblings. The father Thomas could be the man married in 1702, as this James was born after all other children were born. However, it is unlikely as his son James born 1710 is the man we have all assumed survived. So I would say there at least two Thomas Buchans' having families in Dalkeith at this time.

The children of James born 1710 and Anne/Agnes Smith were:

1. Agnes baptised on 10 February 1734 in Leith South [suggesting the couple were married there], thereafter all children were born in Dalkeith
2. Thomas baptised on 1 February 1736, died 1741 in Dalkeith
3. Robert baptised on 30 April 1738
4. Elizabeth baptised on 15 June 1740
5. Walter baptised on 1 August 1742 - see below
6. James baptised on 8 April 1744, died 1745 in Dalkeith
7. Jean baptised on 31 August 1746, died in 1748 in Dalkeith
8. Janet baptised 3 September 1748 - married KENNOWAY
9. James baptised 12 September 1753 
10. Margaret baptised in 1762 was the daughter of Katherine Cockburn.

It is clearly possible to identify a marriage and family for Walter who married firstly Katherine Simpson in August 1773 [registered in both Crichton and Dalkeith Parishes]. Katherine was buried on 2 May 1779. He secondly married Alison Smith on 18 November 1781 in Dalkeith. His children were:

1. James baptised 12 February 1775, died 1775
2. Katherine baptised 5 May 1776
3. Agnes baptised 9 November 1777, and with his second wife:
4. Christian baptised 29 November 1782 and buried in 1783
5. Walter baptised 17 October 1784 and buried in 1876
6. Thomas baptised 25 March 1787
7. Jean baptised 28 June 1789
8. Alison baptised 16 Jan 1791 
9. Christian baptised 17 November 1793.

Only Thomas and Christian married in Dalkeith, to be able to securely identify them belonging to this family. Thomas married Elspeth Fairgrieve in 1813, and they had a son Walter in 1814. Christian married Walter Dickson in 1814. The mother Alison Smith was buried 8 April 1825 aged 69, so born about 1756. Dalkeith contains 10% of all burials in Midlothian in the OPR, despite being only one of 37 parishes. Not the most populous parish but certainly a well documented one.

From one of these families came the family of James Buchan and Jane Taylor who moved to Newbattle. I say this because most of the family of James and Jane were buried in Dalkieth. But which of these two James married Jane? Only buying all marriage certificates might throw some light onto this question, and it is an important one for us. However there is no marriage between James Buchan and anyone named Jane Taylor in all of Scotland between 1770 and 1800. It is likely a non-conformist marriage or an irregular one.

My assessment is that the James born in 1753 as the son of James and Agnes/Ann Smith was the man who moved to Newbattle. Supporting this choice is that he named one of this sons Walter. The other James born in 1732 would be in his 50s before having his first child in the 1770s, and this is less likely.

Newbattle

Newbattle lies south of Dalkeith, and in later times became the fourth division of Dalkeith Town. There is only one Buchan family in Newbattle in the entire OPR. Four children were born to James Buchan and Jane Taylor:

1. James baptised in 1777, married Katherine Hare and had eight children, he died in 1842
2. John baptised in 1779
3. Walter baptised in 1781, married Rachel Hunter and had four children
4. Margaret baptised in 1784.

Importantly most of this family were buried in St Nicholas Buccleuch in Dalkeith. The tradition of the time was to be buried in the parish of your father/husband, and so this creates the link from the Newbattle Buchans to the Dalkeiths Buchans. 

It is very suggestive that George, whose origins are unclear, is born at the same time as the only other family anywhere nearby. This family lived in Easthouses, a village and farming community across the border from Borthwick, barely three miles distant. Our George Buchan's first child was born in 1799, and was baptised in Dewarton, in Borthwick. His wife Jean Johnston was probably born around 1779 according to her burial record, and so would have been under 20 years old when her first child was born. George might have been born any time between 1773 and 1782, given the common-ness I find of wives being older than their husbands in Scotland at this time. 

I feel it is more likely that George was born before James in 1777 given the regularity of births to follow in this family. Further support for George belonging to this family is that he was buried in Newbattle in 1818, as was his son in 1808. Jean too was buried there in 1849. At this time almost all burials would be in the parish churchyard, however there was a civil Newbattle Cemetery opened in 1813. George's burial record of 1818 does not state where he is buried and it would be great to find any cemetery burial records for Jean in Newbattle in 1849. 

Borthwick

We know that George and Jean were the only family in Borthwick in the 18-19th century. [There is one dubiously mis-indexed marriage of a female Buchan in 1725]. Isabella and Andrew lived in Dalkeith in the 1830s, and both married there. In Isabella's case she was living with John Buchan, possibly her uncle John from the Newbattle family? Andrew worked as a grocer and spirit dealer in the 1830s and in 1841, although he returned to live in Newlandrig before the 1851 census. This probably followed the death of his wife Marion, and he would have sought help raising his three daughters. He subsequently worked as a quarryman in Newlandrig till he died. 

Isabella's husband Daniel Inglis was a coachman in the mid 1830s in Dalkeith, before returning to Newlandrig before the 1841 census. He later worked as a labourer in Newlandrig until he died.

However siblings James, Alexander and Helen seemed to have lived most of their lives in Borthwick, being on censuses consistently till their deaths in Borthwick.  William moved to Edinburgh in his 40s where he died, the only one of the siblings with a formal trade. Robert had some time in Edinburgh/Leith [for his eldest children to be born there] and as already noted George and Robert both died in Newbattle Parish in mining accidents in old age. Note that the name Janet Johnson on the top row is incorrect, it should be Janet Thomson.

There is a clear question mark from the Newbattle to the Borthwick Buchans, but I do not feel it is a big question mark.

Where to from here?

The Buchan DNA Study is now turning attention to identifying links with the Newbattle and Dalkeith Buchans. As I have posited from an early post, theoretically we should be able to identify the descendants of George's siblings in our match lists. Importantly now there is a family of potential siblings for George.

So I have been scouring the Ancestry, and later on the other databases, for these families. Already new surnames include Moffat, Peden, Dobie, Stoddart and Edwards - where MN has two matches. A lot more work to do.