Sorry I cannot yet be of much help to you with Laing Johnston. My line has "Laing" as a surname and occasional middle name. Certainly the Scottish custom of honoring the previous generation with their naming pattern points to the stong possibility of Scottish heritage. I'm not sure that the English and Irish were as consistent with the naming process. Perhaps someone else can address that. I only know that with my Scottish ancestors, I can, with reasonable assurity, predict the given names of grandparents by looking at the birth order of children and their names (and vice versa). However, The death of unrecorded infants and children can throw a question mark into the guess work. Seeing a lapse in time of three or four years between recorded births is a good tip off of infant mortality, and a missing ancestor-honoring name. Yet another knot in the search for reconstructing families can be seen in a recent unraveling of the confusion of one William Allan's marriage to Elizabeth Rennie and Bettie Rannie within weeks of each other. One marriage was reported in Lasswade and the other in Liberton, a short distance away. To add to the confusion, the brides were each attributed in official records (Scots Origins) with several children, but not in the same years. Since William was identied as the same individual through references to his birth and parents, I began thinking this William Allan was quite the rogue. Not so! The marriage banns were simply read and recorded in both the church of the bride and the groom on separate Sundays. In one church the future Mrs. Allan was known as "Betty Rannie" and the other church knew her as Elizabeth Rennie. With all children attributed to both the named females combined - voila! - they merged beautifully, arriving about every two years, and reiterating the naming pattern, they were all properly named in birth order to honor the husband's and wife's parents and grandparents respectively. Happy hunting, --Diane Jameson, California Researching Nova Scotia: Jameson, Johnson, Banks, Borgoine (Burgoyne), Sanford, Scofield Lothians, Scotland: Allan, Cram (Cramm, Cramb), Cuningham, Grieve, Hair, Laing, Linn, Rennie, Ronaldson, Ross, Watt, Walker Glasgow, Scotland: Harper, Robertson, Hutchinson, McLean Co. Donegal, Co. Tyrone, Ireland: Harper, Johnston, Irwing (Irwin, Erwin,Irwine,Irvine Irving, Urwin) Australia: Harper, McCullum Massachusetts: Harper, Allan, Jameson, Campbell, Mitchell > From: "Colin Johnston" <Colin.Johnston@care4free.net> > Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 10:08:17 +0100 > To: "Diane Jameson" <dianeelma@earthlink.net> > Subject: Re: [MLN] Laing > > Hi Diane > Thank you for responding. In addition to the OPR quoted I have the marriage > of a John Johnston to an Isobel Laing at Traquair, Peebleshire on 14 June > 1766. > The birth of a son William to a John Johnston and an Isabel Laing at > Oldmelrose, Roxburghshire on 22 March 1770. The birth of a son John to a > John Johnston and an Isabel Laing at Peebles on 24 March 1780. I do not > know if they are connected. > My grandfather (born in Plaistow, Essex, England) had a brother called > Laing. My Greatgrand father, John Alfred (born in Hammersmith, London, > England), had a brother called Laing. My Greatgreatgrand father(baptised at > St Barthomew the Great, London) was called Laing and on his 2nd marriage > certificate his father's name was given as Laing. What I want to know is, > was this the Laing Johnston born in Scotland? > > Colin >