The descendants of William Gordon of Birkenburn

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Gordon is a Scottish habitational name from Gordon in Berwickshire, named with Welsh gor ‘spacious’ and din ‘fort’. There is another suggestion that the origin of the family derives from the Gorduni tribe located in Flanders during the time of Julius Caesar

The Gordons of Banffshire were a Scottish clan later recruited to form the Gordon Highlanders Regiment. The Gordons also had estates in Badenoch, Lochaber, and Strathspey.

With 157 main branches, the Gordon family traces its lineage back to Adam de Gordon who settled in Berwickshire in the time of Malcolm III, known as Malcolm Ceanmor, or his son, David I (1124-53) (House of Gordon USA).

The Clan Gordon tale is one of conflicting sides and bloody feuds with neighbouring clans, which spans the length of Scotland and beyond. The feisty House of Gordon had fire in the belly and weren’t afraid to stand up for what they believed was right (Highland Titles).

Historically one of the most powerful Scottish clans, the Gordon lands once spanned a large territory across the Highlands. Gordon is seated today at Aboyne Castle, Aberdeenshire. The Chief of the clan is the Earl of Huntly, later the Marquess of Huntly.

The first Gordon on record is Richard of Gordon, previously of Swinton, said to have been the grandson of a famous Norman knight who slew some monstrous animal in the Merse during the time of King Malcolm III of Scotland. This Richard was Lord of the Barony of Gordon in the Merse. Richard de (of) Gordon probably died around 1200. Between 1150 and 1160 he granted from his estate a piece of land to the Monks of St. Mary at Kelso, a grant which was confirmed by his son Thomas Gordon. Other notable Gordons from this time include Bertram de Gordon who wounded King Richard of England with an arrow at Châlons.

Alicia Gordon, IV of the Gordon family was the heiress who married her cousin, Adam Gordon. Adam Gordon was a soldier who King Alexander III of Scotland sent with King Louis of France to Palestine. One tradition is that from Adam's grandson, Sir Adam, all of the Gordons in Scotland are descended. This Adam Gordon supported Sir William Wallace in 1297 to recapture the Castle of Wigtown from the English and Adam was made the Governor.

During the Wars of Scottish Independence Sir Adam Gordon, who had supported William Wallace, renounced his subsequent acceptance of the claims of Edward I of England and became a staunch supporter of Robert the Bruce. Adam was killed leading the Clan Gordon at the Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333 but his son Sir Alexander Gordon escaped and was the first Gordon to be designated "of Huntly".

Chief Sir John Gordon was killed leading the clan at the Battle of Otterburn where the English were defeated in 1388. His son, Chief Sir Adam Gordon, was killed leading the clan at the Battle of Homildon Hill, also known as the Battle of Humbleton Hill on 14 September 1402. The chief left his only child, a daughter named Elizabeth Gordon who married Alexander Seton, who was the son of Sir William Seton, chief of Clan Seton.

The Battle of Arbroath was fought in 1445 where Patrick Gordon of Methlic, a cousin of the Earl of Huntly, was killed fighting the Clan Lindsay. From this Patrick Gordon the Earls of Aberdeen descend.

In 1449 Alexander Seton, 1st Earl of Huntly, the eldest son of Elizabeth Gordon and Alexander Seton, Lord Gordon, changed the family name from Seton to Gordon.c. 1457. His male heirs through his third wife Elizabeth Crichton continued to bear the name of Gordon and were chiefs of Clan Gordon.

The chief of Clan Lindsay, Alexander Lindsay, the 4th Earl of Crawford, was badly defeated by the Clan Gordon and Clan Ogilvy under Alexander Gordon, 1st Earl of Huntly (previously Alexander Seton) at the Battle of Brechin in 1452.

The Gordons became involved in the deadly feud between the king and the Clan Douglas for power. The Gordons supported the king but when Gordon moved his forces south, the Earl of Moray who was an ally of the Douglases devastated the Gordon lands and burned Huntly Castle. However, the Gordons returned and soon defeated their enemies. Huntly Castle was rebuilt and when the Douglases were finally defeated the power of the Gordons grew unchallenged. In 1454 the Douglasses broke out in rebellion again and when confronted with the king in the south and Huntly in the north were soundly defeated, effectively ending the confederacy of the Douglasses, Rosses and Crawfords. For his notable contributions Alexander Gordon, 1st Earl of Huntly was styled Cock o' the North, a designation which has ever since been accorded to the heads of clan Gordon.

In 1513, during the Anglo-Scottish Wars, the Clan Gordon led by Alexander Gordon, 3rd Earl of Huntly fought at the Battle of Flodden.

In 1515, the title of Earl of Sutherland and chiefship of the Clan Sutherland passed by right of marriage to Adam Gordon who was a younger son of George Gordon, 2nd Earl of Huntly.

Later during the Anglo-Scottish Wars, George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly defeated an English army at the Battle of Haddon Rig in 1542 but the Gordons were later part of the Scottish army which was defeated at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547.

Chief George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly was General of the forces on the Borders who opposed the forces of Henry VIII of England and Gordon had many victorious encounters. He was however later killed at the Battle of Corrichie in 1562 fighting against the forces of James Stuart, Earl of Moray (half-brother to Mary Queen of Scots). Gordon was killed and his son, Sir John, and other members of his family were later executed at Aberdeen.

Throughout the 16th century the Clan Gordon were involved in a long and bitter struggle against the Clan Forbes. In the 1520s there were murders by both sides, and one of the most prominent killed by the Forbeses was Seton of Meldrum who was a close connection of the Earl of Huntly, chief of Clan Gordon. The Earl of Huntly then became involved in a plot against the Master of Forbes, who was the son of the sixth Lord Forbes. The sixth Lord Forbes had been heavily implicated of the murder of Seton of Meldrum. The Master of Forbes was accused by the Earl of Huntly of conspiring to assassinate James V of Scotland in 1536 by shooting at him with a cannon. The Master of Forbes was tried and executed however just days later his conviction was reversed and the Forbes family was restored to favor. The Protestant Reformation added to the feud between the Clan Forbes and Clan Gordon in that the Gordons remained Catholic and the Forbeses became Protestant. The traditional enemies of the Forbses such as the Clan Leslie, Clan Irvine and Clan Seton sided with the Gordons while Protestant families such as the Clan Keith, Clan Fraser and Clan Crichton sided with the Clan Forbes. Twenty Gordons were killed at a banquet held at the Forbes's Druminnor Castle in 1571. Later in 1571 the feud climaxed with the Battle of Tillieangus, and the Battle of Craibstone, and Druminnor, then the seat of the chief of Clan Forbes was plundered. The Gordons followed this up with the massacre of twenty seven Forbeses of Towie at Corgarff Castle. It took two Acts of Parliament for the clans to put down their arms.

For two centuries from the mid-15th century the Clan Gordon and Clan Campbell controlled the north-east and west of Scotland respectively, as the magnates who straddled the divide between the Scottish Highlands and Scottish Lowlands. In 1594, Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll was granted a Royal Commission against George Gordon, 6th Earl of Huntly but was defeated at the Battle of Glenlivet

The register of the Privy Seal records that in 1615 a complaint was made from Alexander Leask of the Clan Leask that Adam Gordon, brother of the Laird of Gight, put violent hands upon him at the Yet of Leask, wounding him grievously. Later that year the Gordons again attacked the Leasks, setting upon a son of the chief for which George Gordon was outlawed. In 1616, William Leask of that Ilk was accosted by John Gordon of Ardlogy and a party of men with pistolets and hagbuts.

In the early 17th century Clan Gordon had a number of alliances by marriage or friendship. Among these was a strong bond to the Clan Burnett of Leys. The Gordon crest is emblazoned in plasterwork on the ceiling of the early 17th century great hall of Muchalls Castle built by Alexander Burnett.

In 1644 Alexander Bannerman of Pitmedden fought a duel with his cousin, Sir George Gordon of Haddo, and wounded him. Also in 1644 during the Civil War at the Battle of Aberdeen there were Gordons on both sides. Lord Lewis Gordon led his forces on the side of the Covenanters while Sir Nathaniel Gordon led his forces in support of the Royalists.

During the Civil War the second Marquess of Huntly was a fierce royalist and his followers have passed into history as the Gordon Horse and they figured very prominently in the campaigns of the great James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose. Cavalry from the Clan Gordon fought in support of the royalists at the Battle of Auldearn in 1645 where they helped to defeat the Covenanters of Lord Seaforth. The Clan Gordon fought at the Battle of Alford in 1645 where they were victorious, led by George Gordon, 2nd Marquess of Huntly. The Marquess of Huntly's eldest son George Gordon fell at this battle. Also in 1645, Lewis Gordon, clan chief and 3rd Marquess of Huntly burned Brodie Castle of the Clan Brodie.

In 1682 William Gordon of Cardoness Castle, was killed in a fight with Sir Godfrey McCulloch. McCulloch fled Scotland for a time, but returned, only to be apprehended and executed in 1697.

The Gordons fought on both sides during both the Jacobite rising of 1715 and the Jacobite rising of 1745. The second Duke of Gordon followed the Jacobites in 1715 and fought at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. General Wade's report on the Highlands in 1724, estimated the clan strength at 1,000 men.

Cosmo Gordon, 3rd Duke of Gordon supported the British Government during the rising of 1745. However, his brother, Lord Lewis Gordon, raised two Jacobite regiments against the Hanoverians. The Gordon Jacobites fought at the Battle of Inverurie (1745), the Battle of Falkirk (1746) and the Battle of Culloden (1746).

Two regiments named the "Gordon Highlanders" have been raised from the Clan Gordon. The first was the 81st Regiment of Foot (Aberdeenshire Highland Regiment) formed in 1777 by the Hon. Colonel William Gordon, son of the Earl of Aberdeen and was disbanded in 1783. The second was the 92nd (Gordon Highlanders) Regiment of Foot raised by Alexander the 4th Duke of Gordon in 1794.

Birkenburn was a notable house and estate in Keith, Banffshire and historically a minor house of the Gordon family dating back to the 1500s and linked to the Gordon of Lesmoir and the Earl of Huntly. The house moved from the Gordons to the Stuarts in the 18th Century when the male line died out. It had disappeared by the time the Ordnance Survey began producing its maps but does feature in earlier maps including the map above by Aaron Arrowsmith from 1807, located a few miles south-east of Keith.

The history of the family appears in many notable genealogy publications of the time and opened up a new opportunity for my research. My findings found a family whose history and links extend into many of the notable families and historical events in Scotland. A 19th century local history book of the town of Keith makes a tantalising claim of the Birkenburn Gordons being related to royalty in both Scotland and England.

(Heart of Scotland Ancestry blog, The Stuarts and Gordons of Birkenburn, 27 April 2021)

Aberdeen and North East Scotland Family History Society presented an online podcast on the Stewarts and Gordons of Birkenburn, Keith in 2020.

When James Gordon IV of Birkenburn was born about 1607, in Banffshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, his father, Alexander Gordon of Birkenburn, 3rd Earl of Earlston - MP for Galloway, was 28 and his mother, Margaret Fres Bleton Arbuthnot, was 24. He married Janet Maitland about 1635, in Scotland (text in Family Search)

					William Gordon of Birkenburn c 1660 to c 1750 Birkenburn, a small property, valued at £80 per annum, about two miles from Keith in the county of Banff. Keith, Birkenburn, Banffshire GOR00028
			William Gordon The Younger c 1685 to c 1730 Went to University of Aberdeen (mathematics with ambitions to become a civil engineer or mill wright) Broke his leg trying to extinguish a fire His father disowned him after he became earnestly Presbyterian Died before his father Buchan, Pitlurg, Peterhead GOR00024
							Margaret Adam 1777 to 1875	William Sutherland 1780 to 1871
William Gordon c 1705 to 15 July 1776 Cloth weaver, exported to Norway Married Isabel Reid, small heiress Banffshire, Peterhead GOR00020	James Gordon c 1707 Inherited large farm from grandfather In the rebellion of 1745, both James and John went out with Prince Charles and, of course, were ruined (there was a Lieutenant James Gordon of Grant’s Aberdeenshire Regiment taken at Carlisle) Married Elizabeth Gordon on 19 January 1749 Peterhead, Monimusk GOR00021	John Gordon c 1710 to c 1799 Inherited large farm from grandfather In the rebellion of 1745, both James and John went out with Prince Charles and, of course, were ruined Escaped to France and joined the Scotch Brigade until peace in 1782 All except two daughters died in infancy Peterhead, Spynie, Castle Grant GOR00022	Margaret Gordon c 1711 to c 1715 Died young GOR00023
John Gordon c 1733 Went to sea and for some time commanded West India vessels Large family, only two daughters survived GOR00015	William Gordon c 1743 Went to sea and for some time commanded West India vessels Son died in infancy GOR00016	Margaret Gordon C 1750 GOR00018	Alexander Gordon 8 April 1755 His wife’s maiden name might have been Cooper Pitlurg GOR00019	Nine other children died in infancy
Alexander Gordon 31 August 1793 to 19 October 1872 GOR00014	Elizabeth Gordon 17 January 1795 GOR00013	Margaret Gordon 25 September 1796 to 13 April 1870 GOR00012	William Gordon 19 July 1800 to 22 August 1836 Unmarried USA GOR00011	John Gordon 9 July 1800 to 18 November 1801 Died young GOR00010	George Gordon 8 January 1804 to 24 September 1824 Died young GOR00009	Robert Gordon 22 Feb 1802 to 6 February 1857 Agricultural labourer Peterhead GOR00008	James Alexander Gordon 15 June 1806 to 9 December 1891 Miller Married Eliza (Elizabeth) Michie (19 January 1820 to 9 May 1911) on 11 July 1841 Peterhead, Old Machar, Aberdeen GOR00007	James Sutherland 1815 to 1898 Married Margaret Forsyth (1813 to 1885)
	Jessie Mackie Gordon 6 October 1841 to 3 April 1919 Married John Alexander Watt (1827 to 1906) in 1870 GOR00006	Jane (or Jean?) Gordon 26 August 1845 GOR00005	Alexandrina (“Alexa”) Gordon 11 December 1847 GOR00004	Alexander Gordon 15 February 1851 to 28 March 1925 GOR00003	James Gordon 11 January 1856 to 31 August 1929 Shoemaker, Upholsterer, cabinet maker, business owner Married Margaret Sutherland in about 1878 and Annie Irvine in about 1895 Banffshire, Aberdeen GOR00002	Margaret Sutherland 23 December 1852 (but birthday book indicates 7 February) to 22 November 1886 Bellie, Banffshire
			Elizabeth Gordon 17 March 1885	Jean Gordon		The Maternal Coutts Family
					Lizzie Bella Gordon 18 October 1880 to 14 May 1958 Aberdeen GOR00001	Robert Merchant Coutts 20 January 1880 to 1967 Aberdeen, Old Machar COU00006
	The Paternal Coutts Family Tree
			Thomas (“Tom”) Coutts 29 November 1904 to 31 January 1976 Aberdeen COU00002	Evelyn Gordon Coutts 18 June 1907 to 28 March 1995 Aberdeen COU00003		Dorothea Harper (“Dot”) Coutts 13 July 1912 to 9 January 1998 Married James Fullarton Birss (born 11 July ?) on 6 December 1935 COU00004		Kathleen Margaret (“Kay”) Coutts 10 June 1915 Married Ernest Allan (28 December 1910) COU00005
					James Gordon Birss 1938	Margaret Elizabeth Birss 1943	John Alexander Fullarton Birss 1945
					2 children	2 children	4 children
							Eric Robert Allan 1942 3 children	Dorothy May Allan 1947 4 children
				Thomas Gordon Coutts QC 5 July 1933 to Aberdeen, Edinburgh COU00001	The Scott Family Winifred Scott 1935	Evelyn Margaret (“Eve”) Coutts 1938
						2 children
	Jennifer R Wilcock 1965	Julian Thomas Gordon Coutts 2 July 1962 to 1 July 2008 Edinburgh COU00036	Richard Farndale 1963 The Farndale Story The Wensleydale Line	Charlotte Coutts 1964
	Zoe Rachael Coutts 1992	Imogen Hannah Coutts 1995	James Martin Richard Farndale 1994	Sarah Louise Farndale 1997

A historical narrative written by one of the children of Alexander Gordon (b 8 April 1755)(“The Gordon Victorian Narrative, c 1850”)

The first of our family who came to Buchan was William Gordon son of William Gordon of Birkenburn, a small property, valued at £80 per annum in the LeeseBooks(?) (see a Survey of the Province of Moray by Alex Leslie p 298 Ed. 1798). This, however, is an uncertain indication of value or extent I think, it had contained between two and three hundred acres. It is situated on the banks of a streamlet called the ? Soun/Loan/Loun ?, running into the Isla about two miles from Keith in the county of Banff.

William Gordon the younger (my great-Grandfather) was sent to the University of Aberdeen. He used to boast of having been College-bred, and in the days of his fallen fortune his acquaintances sometimes taunted him with it as my father often told me. When at College he had somehow quarrelled with his father who cast him off. I think it had been from his having turned Presbyterian, in earnest; which his father like the most of his Clan at that time had only been nominally, as will presently appear. The College was then a likely place to contract such contamination and I have some of those prosaic performances, called “Godly Books”, well thumbed and well smoked belonging to my great-grandfather: which show him to be a staunch adherent to the Kirk. From whatever cause it arose, they seem never to have been reconciled, and, insofar as I know, did not meet afterwards. The young man thus thrown on his own resources, turned his attention to some means of earning a livelihood, and resolved to become Mill-Wright or what would now be called Civil Engineer, as his mathematical studies would help him in that way; and he entertained a view of going out to the West Indies, where fortunes were rapidly made in the line. After a short apprenticeship of some four years or so, during which he had the misfortune to get a leg broken in a bold effort to extinguish a fire at some house, Gordon of Pitlurg sent him down to superintend the finishing of the mansion house of Upper Kinmundy which was designed from a Jointure residence to his lady. I am quite certain that my Great-Grandfather did superintend the finishing of that place and it is mentioned in Hepburn’s account of Buchan AD1721, as the Jointure House of the Dowager of Pitlurg (see Spalding Club’s “Antiquities of Aberdeen and Banffshire” Vol. 3 p 398). He had come down in 1709 or 10, and this mansion seems to have led my father, uncles and perhaps their fathers, that we were sprung from the Pitlurg branch of the Gordons – so also I thought till very lately. But the kindness had arisen from old acquaintanceship between the families – the original Pitlurg is only a couple of miles distant from Birkenburn; William, shortly after his arrival had seen a Margaret Buchan of Mains Inverugie one of “The Seven Maidens of Mearns” as they were termed, celebrities in their corner, and had married her. Though aware of her name I was not aware of her parentage till an accidental circumstance revealed it to me. On one of my returns from abroad many years ago, I was requested to visit a poor old man in Crimond. To my surprise my patient claimed relationship with me. I answered with a smile that it must be very distant, as I was not aware of having a single relation, on my father’s side, in this part of the world. He then told me that he was descended from the same Buchans as “The Seven Maidens of Mearns”, one of whom my great-grandfather had married. I mentioned the circumstance to my father who at once admitted the truth of the story, though he did not know the old man; but, I learned, that one of his daughters was in the habit of calling at the house, on the strength of that remote connection. This early and inconsiderate marriage, though goo enough for William’s prospects, had sealed his doo with his father, and also his West Indian views – the latter, I understand, he never ceased to regret. He remained where he was and soon afterwards settled in Peterhead in the timber line generally.

JOINTURE: property joined to or settled on a woman at marriage to be enjoyed after her husband’s death.

He left three sons, William, James, John, and a daughter Margaret who died young. He himself had died comparatively young, as his father out-lived him a few years. William Gordon, Esquire of Birkenburn, is mentioned as one of the proprietors of the Parish of Keith in a description of that place written about 1742 (see Vol 2 of the Spalding Club’s Antiquities of Aberdeen and Banffshire p242). On the death of his son the old man had so far relented as to send for the two younger boys, James and John, who certainly had left Peterhead and gone to him whether by invitation or not prior to 1740. Both were settled in large farms, James somewhere near Monimusk and John in the neighbourhood of Spynie. Their grandfather had either sold Birkenburn or had directed it to be sold on his death and divided the money between them as their father could not have provided for them so well. Their elder brother, William, who should have succeeded was left like his father to struggle with poverty and a Mr Stuart became the possessor of Birkenburn. In the rebellion of 1745, both James and John went out with Prince Charles and, of course, were ruined. The circumstances of two young men sons of a rigid Presbyterian and brothers of another, living too distant to act by concert and going out in a cause wherein they had no personal interest shows clearly that their minds had become warped since they left their home. There can be no doubt that their old grandfather had effected this change. It also shows that this difference in politico-religious sentiment had been the main cause of the old man’s dislike to his son and eldest grandson neither of whom benefitted a farthing by him. What became of James I could never learn, indeed William (my grandfather) would never speak on the subject as my mother and father have assured me. Yet there had been no quarrel among them for William named two of his sons, James, who both died in infancy, after that brother; and another, the eldest of his surviving children, John, after the other. John himself told me that he had never seen his namefather, who had left Peterhead some years before he, John, was born, to wit in 1744. I know not if James was that Lieutenant James Gordon of Grant’s Aberdeenshire Regiment, who was taken at Carlisle. I think I have read somewhere of his having been a lad of the Wardhouse family; but I doubt if Gordons were in Wardhouse at that time, and am undecided on that point, especially as that is likely to have been the regiment to which James would belong. John, at length, did cast up. He had escaped to France, where he entered in the Scotch Brigade and served till the peace of 1782. In the following year he returned to Scotland and wrote to my father for pecuniary assistance. He died at a place near Castle Grant about the close of last century. The unwillingness of William to speak of his brothers seems to have arisen from a conviction that they were both alive and a dread of giving the satellites of the vindictive government of Geo 11 a clue to their whereabouts. Thus, the obstinacy and selfish bigotry of the old man had ruined one half of his family, when alive, and the other half after his death.

William, like his father, to shift for himself, was brought up to be a cloth weaver:- a manufactory for coarse cloth, serges, flannels, etc. being about to be established in Peterhead for export to Norway and the Highlands, where the chief trade of the place ran at that time. The manufactory prospered for about half a century, till superseded, as staple, by twist mills and smuggling, on the establishment of peace. William had had somewhat of the pride of birth about him saying that he was distinguished from the generality of the lieges there by wearing a comely and well-powdered wig, and was moreover a stately and sedate-looking man. He married an heiress, in a small way, one Isabel Reid, whose ancestors were said to have occupied Clarkhill for two or three hundred years. They had been people of some consideration, as I have a gold wedding ring which was given to my grandmother, when a child, by her great-grandmother and the rude carving of the Poesy on it indicates a corresponding antiquity. Such trinkets were not in everybody’s possession in those days. Isabel had a maternal uncle, named James Whyte, who figures as one of the three families in Peterhead in Earl Marshall’s commission until 4th Dec. 1711 and appears to have been continued in another dated 2nd Feb. 1713 (see Arbuthnot’s Hist. of Peterhead pp77 – 79). Unluckily she had a paternal uncle also under whose guardianship she was left. The rascal managed to strip her of almost the whole of her property, and to America. There he and his family had soon become extinct as advertisements appeared in the Newspapers for heirs by the name of Reid to “The Peterhead Estate”. My father saw them but, as he said, he was not the heir, and gave himself no trouble about them!

Isabel had not been altogether stripped of her property for I recollect seeing one or two letters, missives in my father’s hands, about the sale of Fees – tenements in the town and I knew of another which must have been disponed by her husband. But these and some other papers, upon which I set a value were not permitted to reach my hands. William had by his wife thirteen children, nine of whom died in infancy, as his tombstone attests. The four who reached maturity were John, William, Margaret and Alexander. The last, the youngest and consequently a spoiled child the marks of which stuck to him while he breathed. John and William went to sea and for some time commanded West India vessels. The former, like his father, had a numerous family but like his too they all died in infancy except two daughters whom I have seen. William had only a son and he died in infancy. William left a considerable sum of money, the funded portion of which his brimstone wife had managed to get transferred into her own name; and she further managed to get the remainder divided among her own relations and family. Her husband an easy-going sailor died after several shocks of palsy, which naturally weakens the mind. But his wife who had really kept together the money always had a great influence over him and took care to have him at loggerheads with his brothers. She nearly made a quarrel between him and me but I became rather a favourite with the old man who vastly applauded my entering the Navy, and wearing the blue jacket. I had been absent a couple of years when he died and my name was not so much as mentioned in his will which, I own, did not greatly surprise me, as I was aware of the greedy selfish brought to bear upon his mind. One legacy did nettle me – it was to a man who had married a second or third cousin of his wife’s and so little did he know of him that his Christian name was left blank in the will. Absurd and irrational as this distribution of his property was, it could not be set aside from the known feuds between the brothers.

Alexander (my father) the youngest as I have said, was born at Pitlurg, 8th April 1755.

Lizzie Bella Gordon’s record of ancestral dates