Dear everybody. I've been investigating a James Blain who was a schoolmaster in Inch before becoming a revenue officer in 1797. He ended up in Dundee - I've put some things about him on my webpage about Blains in Inch. Now somebody's got in touch and I'm trying to find out more. He wasn't one of 'mine' but there might be a connection somewhere - I'm investigating all the James Blains in and around Inch at that time! In Dundee he became the Tide Surveyor, a customs officer. I found him in the 1841 census there, though haven't found him in 1851. There is a gravestone in Dundee which used to be legible, and which mentions two of his sons (John and William). Another son, James Hamilton Blain, became a customs officer in Aberdeen before retiring to Dundee again, and there's a testament which I haven't yet seen. I've posted on the Angus list a bit of earlier history on James Blain, starting in Inch parish, so here it is below too. He belongs in both areas! Hope you like it! Jenny -------- James Blain became schoolmaster in Cairn of Inch in Wigtownshire, got a girl named Margaret Begg pregnant in 1797*, joined the revenue cutter Prince William Henry** (master James Hamilton), married Mary Earl in Inch parish in 1798, being noted as Clerk on the cutter at that time, had various children born in various places including Bute, Leith, Monifieth and Dundee, and eventually as Tide Surveyor lived in the Seagate in Dundee. In the 1841 census he's given as age 60 and is probably on the older side of that age range (60-64-ish). *The child was named Peter Blain, and it's his birth that started me investigating this James out of interest. There's an interesting set of entries in the Inch, Wigtownshire Kirk Session minutes, including a letter from James expressing his sorrow at his 'sin'. ** The cutter Prince William Henry, master James Hamilton, was granted letters of marque around the time of Trafalgar. I don't of course know if James Blain was still associated with it but it seems quite possible. -- World's winds bending trees: breaths of all those who have lived flow now on the wind.