And the follow-up to the first post as follows: "Thank you David for two most interesting and informative replies to my posts looking for information relating to early 16th century leases to the Cowane family of Stirling. I will look for any surviving Erskine papers to see if any of these leases might have survived. The first person horror story account on the destruction of documents authorized by the Stirling Council contains many lessons for all of us: politicians do not necessarily share the same value systems as geneologists; the priorities required for business decisions regarding allocation of financial resources are not high for bundles of documents that have a high ongoing maintenance cost. Test me ... John Cowane was born about 1570 and died in October of 1633. John's father Walter Cowane was first married to Janet Alexander and secondly to Mariota Chrystison. John was a child along with his sister Maise of the second marriage. Interestingly, there may have also been a son John born of Walter Cowane's first marriage. In my personal quest for the John Cowan who left Scotland and settled in County Down in 1637 "in consequence of a duel," this seems to allow for a step-brother to John whose issue might have high tailed it out of Scotland in 1637 at the time of the distribution of the Cowane estate and the pursuit of Covenanteers by Montrose. It is the several ackowledgements by Cowane's genealogist W. W. Cook in the Stirling Antiquary in the 1890's and the later work of Craig Mair in STIRLING, THE ROYAL BURGH, Edinburgh, 1990 that continues to offer slim straws of hope or else I may be resigned to the roll of a possible decendent of one of John Cowane's two illegitimate sons. I've been called worse. My Ulster research on the Cowan families in Derry and county Down shows that these Cowan merchants organized family cartels in order to monopolize as much as possible all the steps in getting a product to market. All these other Cowans that show up in the printed genealogies had important roles to perform .... farming lands, purchasing hides, hijacking ships, producing spirits, all the day to day activities in which John Cowane, Merchant, Guildsman, profligate fornicator and Privateer was involved. Acknowledged: The family of William Cowane, contemporary with John's grandfather, also John Cowane, Merchant, grocer to the royal household. John Cowane, Hammerman, and a member of the Stirling Council, also a contemporary of John's grandfather. Two illigitimate sons previously alluded to and a legitimate step-brother, issue of Walter Cowan's first marriage. Walter MacCowane and another Cowan who appear in the 1630 Muster Roll of Donegal as servitors of Lord Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy of Ireland. And the 1733 Statement of Sir Robert Cowan, M.P., Governor of Bombay that the family originally came from Stirling a century earlier. If I could fit Walter Cowan's (John's brother) marrige to Ana Stirling into this I would. But they had no issue. jcmaclay Does anybody have Erskine connections?