About this project and me

 In April 2022 I used DNA to find my Buchan family in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

My beloved grandmother Elsie Buchan (1905-1986) was fiercely proud of her Scottish roots - but I could not find them through traditional genealogical methods in over 20 years! Her grandfather was Robert Buchan (1834-1882), an 18 year old immigrant to Melbourne, Australia in 1852 during the Victorian Gold Rush.  After attending a course on Genetic Genealogy - ie using DNA to determine family relationships - it was supremely easy to find Robert's family in Borthwick Parish, Midlothian, Scotland.

Elsie Buchan on the right, her sister Annie Buchan and husband Harry McGuiness

Emboldened to trace more of the Buchans, I reached out to some of my DNA matches in this family, asking them to help me extend what we could discover. I started with my Australian relatives, both 'close' - siblings and first cousins, and 'nearby' - second and third cousins. I started to understand about 'removed' cousins. 

By finding the Buchans of Borthwick it was great to see that earlier family historians had already traced and documented this family back to George Buchan and Jean Johnston both born in the late 1770s, and their 9 children. Things snowballed. Using online trees, and my DNA match list, I found third, fourth and fifth cousins from all over the world who have now added their DNA to the mix. 

My aims?

1. Find the family of Robert Buchan's mother, Janet McRae

2. Find the families of George Buchan and Jean Johnston

3. Reconnect the Buchan of Borthwick Diaspora = all of us descended from this couple

The blog began as a PRIVATE blog only open to people who have contributed their DNA match list and family trees and stories. 

It is now a PUBLIC blog reaching out to anyone descended from George and Jean who wish to find their Buchan roots, and add their stories for us all to appreciate.

My name is Clare McGuiness, and I live in Australia. Based on my pedigree I had felt I might have been about 1/8 Scottish, because my grandmother Elsie's mother was from an English family. To my great delight, when Ancestry revealed their parental breakdown analysis - I learned that I was more Scottish than any other ethnicity! 




Below is my pedigree using the fabulous dnapainter.com site. The Buchans are on the paternal maternal side.





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Janet 'whaur are ye'?

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Janet McRae is missing - is that even her real name! Janet is the mother of Robert Buchan who arrived in Australia in 1852. She is named on his marriage and death certificates in Australia, but I can not find her in Scotland.  In May I will travel to Edinburgh to do 'local' research into the Buchans and Janet. This elusive ancestor of the Australian Buchans is relevant mostly to her descendants, but the strategy to 'find' her is the same as for any missing ancestor. The task will use DNA + Documentary records and TIME. I began this research in March 2022, during the Skills course of YourDNAGuide run by Diahan Southard. So it is already taking time. Because, to my knowledge, Janet's son Robert is her only child, the DNA for the research must come from Australian Buchans only. The story so far.... I believe that Janet McCray is the name listed as his mother on Robert Buchan’s marriage certificate of 1860, see image below.   His father is listed as Robert Buchan. DNA
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Some Buchans Go to Canada

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 Blog Note - Mark is another collaborator in the study as well as descendant of Mary Buchan. All text is his text unchanged. All images were inserted by me. Click here for the story by another of her descendants, Ronnie Aitchison. Mary Buchan   - April 6, 1867 to February 25, 1924   Mary Buchan was my great grandmother and was my father’s grandmother on his maternal side.  She was born on April 5, 1867 in Haddington, Scotland which is a small town located about 27 kilometres east of Edinburgh and about 20 kilometres west of the North Sea.   Mary’s parents were William Buchan (1838 to 1872) and Annie Pearson (1838 – 1917). William was a grocer, baker and spirit merchant in Haddington and Annie Pearson worked along with her husband in running the successful business. William and Annie had 7 children consisting of 4 sons and 3 daughters with Mary Buchan being the 5 th eldest of her siblings.   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blaeu_-_Atlas_of_Scotland_1654 Haddington was a
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The lost families of Robert Buchan born 1813

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Robert had three separate families, and the distancing of time has led to two of his children being 'lost'. To the world of 2022 there had been knowledge of only the last, legally sanctioned and documented one.  DNA discovered the earlier two children, importantly because these children went onto have large families, and over time, descendants of these large families tested their DNA with Ancestry. Robert's place in the family Robert was the sixth child and fifth son of George Buchan and Jean Johnston born in about 1813 based mostly on his age at death in early January. He is my x3 great grandfather. No-one has yet found a baptism record for him. He lived in close proximity to his Buchan family all his life, with the likely exception of a few years in Edinburgh in the mid 1830s. Most of his life was lived in Borthwick Parish, till about 1860 when his second youngest child Jemima was born in Newbattle Parish. Newbattle is immediately to the north of Borthwick Parish, and was
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A Mystery Buchan Match

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I generally contact matches hoping to learn more about Buchan connections. Sometimes people don't have any information to share. This was the case with Janice. She matches Pat at 39cM, Julie at 13cM, Marnie at 16cM and Ronnie at 13cM. But Janice only knows her mother's and her maternal grandmother's names. So of course she doesn't know if any Buchan match is on her mother's or her father's side.  Ancestry's release of assignment to either Parent1or Parent2 based on matching signatures and then refined  by people allocating a match to either Father or Mother landed just as I offered to help Janice find her father.  Suddenly, we could quickly identify who was on either side of the blanket. However there was a caveat for Janice - her parents share the same ethnicity - Lowland Scotland, Northern England and Northern Ireland. Fortunately her half nephew on her mother's side had done a DNA test - he was her highest match at 1216cM. Anyone matching him was allo
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Clare goes to Borthwick in 2024

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Ask the Wife

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