Whitelaw Family

[maggymayshepherd]

Whitelaw Family

We are trying to trace the forebears of Alexander Whitelaw b1797 in Tweedmouth , wife Agnes Trotter b 1797.
His mother was Jane Newells of Tweedmouth.
His father was John Whitelaw of Simpran in Berwickshire.  Unfortunately, there are four Johns registered in Scotland’s People in that area none of which are from Simpran.

Has anyone further information they could share with us.
Margaret and Peter

[rubeaz]

Hello from Australia

I am trying to find information on Catherine Whitelaw born around 1795, but I have no idea of her birth place, although I think it is Glasgow Scotland. She married Neil Campbell and they had a number of children in Ireland and Scotland between 1810 and 1830.

[maggymayshepherd]

Dear Robeaz
Although your Catherine is not related to our tree there are many Whitelaws in the Glasgow area.  We have located an Archibald Whitelaw b1415 in Fife, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (www.oxforddnb.com), and they were ejected in disgrace from Fenton Tower in East Lothian in the late 1500 (www.manager@fentontower.com).  There is also a book, a copy of which is in The National Library of Scotland (enquirers@nls.uk) called the House of Whitelaw by H. Vincent Whitelaw, you can obtain printouts of the family trees contained within for about £5 stirling.

If you have access to Genes Reunited or Ancestry I can give you more information. 
Margaret and Peter

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

Whitelaw Family

We are trying to trace the forebears of Alexander Whitelaw b1797 in Tweedmouth , wife Agnes Trotter b 1797.
His mother was Jane Newells of Tweedmouth.
His father was John Whitelaw of Simpran in Berwickshire.  Unfortunately, there are four Johns registered in Scotland’s People in that area none of which are from Simpran.

Has anyone further information they could share with us.
Margaret and Peter

I think you will find it's more commonly known as Simprim though sometimes transcribed as Simprin or Simpin. The Parish suffered a great deal during the 1700's and you may find that any surviving baptism record may be in the parish of Swinton.

In fact Simprim Parish united with Swinton at what may prove to be right around the timeframe that applies to John. I photographed the ruins of Simprim Church last year and added some history about the site to a website. An abridged version of that history from around the year 1700 is shown below..

Around 1700 a new minister provided a revival for the church and in the mid 1700's a new bell and steeple were added. By 1761 the tiny parish had united with Swinton, the bell was removed and the church began to fall into ruin.

Within the grounds of the old church gravestones dating back to the early 1700's can still be seen. Simprim "village" lies to one side of the road and comprises the church ruins and a few cottages associated with the farm on the opposite side of the road.




The ruins of Simprim church still stand and give an idea of the size of the building in the mid 1700,s and it's best described as small, as was the parish, the combined population of the Swinton and Simprim parishes in the mid 1700's was less than 500 and by 1800 had climbed to something around 850.

The village of Simprim today is really just a small number of houses on either side of a rural road, a short straight maybe half a mile long  between two 90 degree bends is about the size of it. Most buildings are connected to the farm which takes up the majority of the village, the old labourers cottages plus a couple of more modern houses and the church ruins stand on one side,  the main farmyard on the other.

If you want a copy of the photographs let me know by pm, it's probably best to remove e-mail addys from the posts here, (it's suprising a mod hasn't done so already tbh).

[maggymayshepherd]

Dear tbh

As we are novices at this kind of thing we are somewhat ignorant of how to use the site.  We get particularly baffled by the use of shortened words, and the use of initials.  We guessed that you were referring to the email address but addys and mod mean anything to us.in

We would however like to receive any pictures of Simprin

Margaret and Peter

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

Hi

If you send me a message (pm) with your e-mail address i will forward the pictures on to you.

Mods (moderators) are usually pretty quick to remove an e-mail address that appears in a reply.
Threads on Rootschat can appear in google search results so anyone could stumble across your e-mail address and you could finish up with spam e-mail messages.

Glen

[maggymayshepherd]

Hi Glen

Thank you for your explanation of the terms.  But, how could we give someone our email address without causing problems as on other occassions this has enabled us too send large quantities of data to one another without using the chat room.

We would still be happy to receive any photographs of Simprin.

Margaret and Peter

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

I received your message and copies of the photographs should already be with you now, if you ever need to exchange or let someone know your e-mail address here on Rootschat then just send a message in the same way you contacted me.

Everyone can send and receive messages so it means you can exchange information with anyone but still keep your e-mail address off the part of the site which is open to the public.

Glen

[maggymayshepherd]

Hi Glen

Many thanks for photographs, we enjoyed looking at them and have filed them away for future use.

The register of baptisms in the parish of Tweedmouth give Francis Whitelaw's father as John Whitelaw of Tweedmouth, as a native of Simpran, Berwickshire. Do you think we should take this to mean that he was born in Simpran or that is where he lived before moving to Tweedmouth.

Peter and Margaret