Haddington is a lovely wee town I know, I live there now. http://www.haddingtoncc.org.uk/ However, much as I loved Nigel Tranter, please remember that no matter how well researched his books were, that the novel are essentially fiction written against an historical background. Read them, enjoy them, but do not totally trust them as history except the books which are down as real history and the like (as he wrote about 140 books in his life there is a lot to go through. http://www.nigeltranter.co.uk/ tells you about him. Sorry to commit the no, no and bring in Scotland. Edward -----Original Message----- From: Linda Merle [mailto:merle@mail.fea.net] Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 6:28 PM To: Scotch-Irish-L@rootsweb.com Subject: RE: [Sc-Ir] Douglas Dear Robert, Thanks for posting this. This is MAJOR information for anyone researching in the Barony of Fews in the 1600s. One of the ways you find the Scottish origin of the families is to trace the landlord. And this one, not surprisingly, comes from a specific area of Scotland. When settling his Ulster estate, he required reliable, loyal tenants. He obtained these men from his own estate in Scotland as well as his neighbors and relatives. It's an area of Scotland that my father's Scottish ancestors came from -- the southeast coastal area: the Lothians. This was also the area where the great Douglas family lived. >DOUGLAS, Sir James of Spott: Spott is a parish in East Lothian. Actually my family has surnames that originated in Spott. At some point we said "Out, out, dread Spott" and buggied north to more interesting places like Haddington. Like Douglas, the surname HOME is an old border surname. >Received >numerous gifts from King James1. 1610 described as "gentleman of the privy >chamber". King James often rewarded his friends. If you check www.worldgenweb.com you can make your way to webpages for Spott and neighboring parishes in Scotland. SOme have MIs (Monument Inscriptions) posted on the websites. I found one direct ancestor's grave on line a couple weeks ago. There's a lot of the early history of the Lothians on line as well. Believed to be the kingdom of King Lot. In any case it has a very long and hoary history. Hanna "The Scotch-Irish" has the reports made to King James in the first 30 years or so of the Ulster Plantation, providing the names of the major undertakers, their heirs, and the history of the settlements. It's not too hard to trace these early undertakers to Scotland. They recruited their own tenants and that of neighbors for their Ulster estates. If you do research in Scottish locales enough to know the surnames, you can sometimes easily spot similar groupings in Ulster. Nigel Tranter, now deceased, wrote many books on Scottish history. In many the various branches of the Douglases play a major role. You can find his books for sell on www.amazon.com. Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net