On Monday, June 12, 2017 at 12:31:29 PM UTC-4, [email protected] wrote: > Jan mentioned possibly finding more on the Downie, Raa, and Baxter ancestry of Agnes Baxter, wife of Mr. John Heart, minister. > > Another possibly fruitful avenue of research might be to seek the ancestry of David Heart, the father of Mr. John. > > I suspect he is the "David Heart" listed in 1597 among the servants of Mr. William Hairt/ Heart of Leviland. > > https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=msu.31293024812277;view=1up;seq=429 > > Mr. William was also called "of Preston" or "Prestoun": > > "Maister William Hairt of Prestoun" was one of the Justice-deputes in Scotland, and presided under that designation at [the plotter] Sprot's [1608] trial. He appears to have been knighted very soon after the trial, and the reason can scarcely be doubted. This respectable functionary drew up an official account of the culprit's examinations, confessions, and execution, which was prefaced by a long and abject sermon in favour of the king, by Dr George Abbot, dean of Winchester, soon afterwards made Primate of England. This _ex parte_ account of the matter, so important for his majesty, the courtly dean immediately published ... > > https://books.google.com/books?id=ckgMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA283&dq=%22william+hairt%22+depute&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiy4OCN2rjUAhVESiYKHbmcCp4Q6AEIUjAI#v=onepage&q=%22william%20hairt%22%20depute&f=false > > David Heart, the servant in 1597, may have been a nephew or other agnate kinsman of Sir William Heart/ Hairt. A few years later, around 1600, David apparently transferred into the service of the Elphinstone family. By 1612, David Hart had apparently moved on to the service of the Elphinstones' kinsman, Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney: "Complaint by Sir Thomas Hammiltoun of Byris for his Majesty's interest, as follows:---Albeit the King discharged Patrik, Earl of Orknay, his deputes and clerks, of all using of the office of sheriffship and justiciary within the bounds of Orknay and Zetland, as the proclamation published at the market cross of Kirkwall shows, yet Thomas Levingstoun of Pantone, sometime depute to the said Earl, and David Hairt, his clerk, 'being loath to foirgo the commoditie and gayne quhilk undir the pretext and cullour of justice, and by manifest oppressioun of the distressit people within the saidis boundis, thay did yeirlie acquire be the saidis officeis,' still 'usurp upoun thame the administratioun of the saidis officeis within the boundis foirsaidis ...'" https://books.google.com/books?id=Bqv6VEeeEnkC&pg=PA365&dq=%22thomas+Levingstoun+of+Pantone%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiU18b5mbvUAhVDOCYKHUtdAy8Q6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=%22thomas%20Levingstoun%20of%20Pantone%22&f=false So apparently David Heart was the clerk either of Patrick's deputy Livingston, or of Patrick Stewart himself.