Subject: Appreciation again to SKS Appreciation again to SKS Just another heads up to those who “reach out to touch someone” in the ongoing quest to find elusive ancestors. Irene McLeod, for example, unearthed a picture of the gravestone for Margaret McGrigor, alongside that of Margaret’s husband, Thomas Clint, and what a wonderful inscription she had, too. “”Here lyes Margaret McGRIGOR spouse to Thomas CLINT, Vintner in Dumfries who ever proved herself a good Christian. A dutiful wife, a tender mother affable and courteous to strangers and carried with her to the grave the esteem and regret of all her acquaintances. She departed this mortal life perfectly resigned to the will of her creator the 22nd day of Nov 1782. R.J.P. Also Margaret CLINT her granddaughter who was born 5th June 1791 and died 20th July 1793. Also lies here Margaret Jane CLINT second daughter of Henry CLINT who died upon the 9th of December MDCCXCV11 aged 2 years 8 months.””” Unfortunately, there is no record of the names of who ascribed such glowing appreciation of their parents. I still have to glue Thomas Clint of Carlingwark on the tree as definitely my grandfather five times removed. The Kelton parish records are miserable, and so apart from knowing that Carlingwark is the old name for Castle Douglas in Kirkcudbrightshire and was/is a flourishing market town, I can’t find any documentation for the possible forebears. The inscription on Thomas’s headstone reads: Terregles “”'Thos CLINT of Carlingwark d 8.12.1796 65. For honesty & probity the deceased had no superior, all who were of his acquaintance respected him while living and his two surviving sons and a daughter in testimony of their filial affection have erected this monument. Anno 1796. Also lies here Thos CLINT his son d 3.11.1790 21.'””” (Again, another brick wall as, unfortunately, the names of the sons and daughter are not given.) The contact in the Dumfries Archives was of the opinion that if Thomas Clint was referred to as Thomas Clint of Carlingwark, he had to have been a person of some standing. He was a vintner and landlord of the King’s Arms Hotel, Dumfries. His son Henry Clint followed in his father’s footsteps and it is thought that he is the Mr. Clint referred to to whom Robert Burns gave his poems to be passed on to his friend John McMurdo. I believe those poems were among a collection of bawdy poems and songs Robert Burns compiled. I was “gifted” with a copy some years back, but was a wee bitty mortified at the rank coarseness so that I either threw out the book or sent it to the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, to be added to their Burns’ Room. As Burns was living in Dumfries, and where he died, he probably knew the King’s Arms establishment well. Henry Clint then followed in his father Thomas’s footsteps as vintner and landlord of the King’s Arms Hotel, Dumfries (and which I believe is still in existence after 200 years). He and his brother John (who may be my grandfather four times removed) seem not to have been good stewards of their inheritance as the Court of Sessions, Edinburgh shows them in default of debts to a few people, ranging from Dumfries “all the way up to” Glasgow. Irene has volunteered to do some research for me when she is in Edinburgh in the spring. This will be really fine as one has to go in person to “dig” as the Court of Sessions only provide the records, no research per se, which cost £15 for an initial record and then pro rata for additional information. Jenny Myers then sent me a list of Scots legal terms, on of which is sequestration, which means bankruptcy. On this, I wonder, then, if Henry Clint lost the King’s Arms Hotel, Dumfries because of bankruptcy in 1798, two years after the death of Robert Burns in 1796. More research. Kind people on other lists have offered their opinions, so all compiled, help to fill in more of the blanks. Super thanks to to Malcolm for his unstinting kindness. We then jump south in Kirkcudbrightshire a generation, when William Clint, who could be farmer John Clint’s son, is listed as an agricultural labourer in Auchencairn,, where his wife Sarah Hyslop was born. Don’t know how they connected, but out of this union there was James Hyslop Clint (born Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire) who left Auchencairn five years after his wife Agnes McLean died. He “inadvertently” found himself a participant in the “soap opera” when he married his second wife who was from England and they started a new family. James Hyslop Clint then became captain of mines in Wales, where he would die. We have no record if he ever kept in touch with his family in Auchencairn when he moved to England. In adulthood, the Auchencairn siblings seem to have scattered to the four winds, with one son, Peter, my grandfather, ending up in Glasgow. No scandal, no nuttin’, no fortunes earned, owed or lost, except that he died too young in his late forties of myocarditis. Peter Clint’s descendants, my siblings and their offspring for a couple of more generations, seem to be run of the mill, which is a relief! It’s been some effort to put all the pieces of this family together, going back to 1738 in Carlingwark, Kirkcudbrightshire. The English records for my father’s Hillcoat family are much more complete, going as far back as the mid-1600s. Somebody did a herculean job putting all the details together. Long “story,” but it just might help others to keep in trying to find more information with the help of those on the lists who have the knack who unselfishly give of their time and efforts to dig out the information...I am indebted to them as my research skills are nil! On a last note, a few wee bon mot from the Land o’ Cakes (in deference to Robert Burns, January 25, 1759, Alloway, Ayrshire– July 21, 1796 Dumfries, Kirkcudbrightshire): ----------------------------- Then let us toast John Barleycorn, Each man a glass in hand And may his great prosperity Ne'er fail in old Scotland Maisie -------------------------------