Well, as mentioned before, there’s a “somewhat possibility” that I have a fanciful passing acquaintance with Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet, bar none, if I can confirm that Henry Clint, vintner, innkeeper of the King’s Arms Hotel, Dumfries is related to me. Robert Burns wrote the following about his collection of poems for his friend John McMurdo: “””When you are tired of them, please leave them with Mr. Clint, of the King's Arms.””” Assuming that the transaction took place between Mr. Clint (Henry’s father was also Thomas Clint, vintner and innkeeper at this King’s Arms) and Mr. McMurdo, this likely means that Robert Burns frequented this inn/hotel often enough to know the innkeeper by name, ergo Mr. Clint. The next name-dropping is less tenuous as my father’s uncle, John Clint, was a coachman to Benjamin Rigby Murray, owner of one the biggest cotton spilling mills in Manchester. His forebears. Adam and George Murray, who started the mills, came from Southwest Scotland. Another Scottish combo, McConnell and Kennedy, were also famous in the cotton mill spinning industry and at one point combined forces with Murray’s Mills. At the height of the success of Murray’s Mills, over 1,000 were employed, working 72 hours a week under terrible conditions. An investigation into working conditions reduced the hours to 69 hours per week. The average wage was 11/-s (eleven shillings) a week. Mostly women and children were employed in the mills. This was “good money” when one of my Irish kin died in the City poorhouse Glasgow where it was noted had been earning 1/6d (one shilling and sixpence ) a week as a shoe binder. Benjamin Rigby Murray used his vast fortune when he retired to Kirkcudbrightshire where his forebears had come from to live in a big enough mansion, referred to as Parton House, which required 11 servants, a nurse, lady’s maid, cook, gardener, you name it, as well as a coachman…and this is where my father’s uncle fits it. He was the coachman in this take-off of Downton Abbey! John Clint was an excellent artist of two notable oil paintings that I know of, one of ‘Balcary Bay and Hestan Island’ and the other entitled ‘The Grampians.’ I let the former get out of my grasp when I was home in the early 1980s, and the latter is hanging in Auchencairn House, now a private riding school. As also alluded to before, Jean and John Johnstone on the Lanark list, managed to get access to the painting in Auchencairn House and sent me a copy of the photograph they took of it. The owners have been less than forthcoming in answering my queries about what they know of its provenance. This John Clint probably lost his job as a coachman with the advent of the automobile and ended up as the hotelkeeper of the Victoria Temperance Hotel, Castle Douglas. He and his wife Bessie (Elizabeth) McKenzie, married in Glasgow when he was visiting my father’s father Peter Clint, originally from Auchencairn, Kirkcudbrightshire. I was right there in Castle Douglas when my school went potato picking in the surrounding farms during the war and didn’t know a thing about my father’s forebears at that time. Now it’s catch-up time but sadly the major players have left the stage. Name-dropping as the lives of Henry Clint, vinter, innkeeper, and John Clint, coachman, hotelkeeper, have been uncovered has been a real kick. Henry Clint is a sticky wicket, however, as he was around too early in the late 1700s to find records for him, plus the thought is that he may have come from England. I have received so much help from Irene Macleod, Erica Johnstone, Dumfries and Galloway archivist as well as Malcolm Lockerbie of the Wigtownshire list, that I would never have been this far along on my search. Now that I have a ton of documents (a four inch binder full) maybe it’s time to start the narrative. Of course, any ideas on how to track Henry Clint’s roots would be greatly appreciated. Maisie