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David Hackston of Rathilett was a well known 17th century covenanter and was executed in Edinburgh on 30th July 1680.  After his brutal execution his body parts were displayed throughout the country as a warning to others and his hands are buried in the churchyard at Cupar where you can find a headstone.

There are many derivates of the name including Halkerston, Halkerstoun, Haxton, etc and a family myth persists that the Hackston family of circa 1900 Holytown are connected to the historical Hackston of Rathilett.  To date I have traced back to a George Hackston b.1811 in Ayrshire and also the line of David Hackston as outlined in "Old Families of Scotland" but as yet have been unable to find a connection.

I've posted details of both George Hackston and the Halkerston family on my website, (http:///www.family-history-scotland.co.uk) and I'd be grateful for any other clues that may be out there....

I've read a number of articles on getting started guides within the main ancestry databases and the advice given is always to spell geenealogy properly so as to appear professional and informed and I can understand the reasoning but there are a few downsides;

For example, let's just say that I've got a distant cousin who has just published a full family history of Bob Smith.  He's done a great job, all of Bob's siblings, children, places of residence, etc, etc.  Unfortunately my distant cousin made a typo and entered a title of "The Geenealogy of Bob Smith".  Now, some time later I come along and start searching for the elusive Bob.  I go along to Google, Yahoo or whatever and carefully type "Bob Smith" + genealogy.  Guess what? No results!  Why? because Google looked at genealogy AND geenealogy and thought nope that doesn't match!  Throughout my website you will find instances of misspellings and the correct spelling.  What I'm trying to do here is capture the searches of those people who have simply mistyped a word.  Equally, when I'm searching the internet I use very specific searches (using the "", +, operators) AND common misspellings of geneology, famaily hisory, etc, etc

The same rules obviously apply when looking for placenames, surnames, etc, etc.  So remember, combine common misspellings with your surname searches and I'll guarantee that you will begin to discover some great sites that you would otherwise miss.

I'm sure that there are other techniques that researchers use and it would be interesting to get some other ideas....

Regards,

Bill

I've been studying my family history for a few years now but fairly early on I was struck by the number of 'spooky coincidences' that I've picked up.

For example, I discovered that my 4xG. Grandfather was the next door neighbour of my wife's 4xG. Grandmother!  The families were unconnected, and remained so until my marriage some 100 years later.  Given that this was in a completely different part of the country and through a variety of chance happenings this seems curious.

I've also noticed that certain dates seem to come up time and time again... Marriages (and deaths) on xmas day, concentrations of births on particular days, etc, etc.

Now I'm not suggesting that there's anything supernatural or pre-ordained about all of this but it does seem curious and I wonder if other researchers have noticed anything similar....

Interested in feedback from other visitors.

Bill

Hi all,

I posted an item some time ago about 'breaking brick walls', hopefully this may be of some use;

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,164730.msg772714.html#msg772714

Hope this helps,

Bill

Got a Clementina Low(e) from Montrose (Angus) d.30 June 1863 married to Joseph Spankie.   Just visited the Rosehill cemetery at Montrose where Low / Lowe certainly seems a popular surname.

Got other details unpublished at the moment, happy to share.

Bill