Heather Barford's Page

True their are many reasons for names, I think that I did read many moons ago, maybe in a tartan book or in one of those brief bottled histories that use to accompany the bits and bobs that you bought when on holiday because they accompanied your tartan that that those branches of the family had either red or black hair I imagine to counteract the dark deeds or blood that accompanied the tales that went with those family lines, depending on friend or foe you were either angel or devil to someone anyway, such is the way that myths are created and deeds good and bad interpreted and handed down to us. The Good Sir James or the Black Douglas certainly wrote some amazing poetry anyway, so he was evidently a man with a soul. Maybe being a man of the land like sailors he had a mistress in every port of call, certainly with the communication of those times they were hardly likely to run across one another, they were the pop and sports stars of the times they lived in and it might have been an honour to sleep with them.

Yes I would love to do family tree research through DNA testing, unfortunatly the family fortunes ran out by my generation anyway but who knows what will turn up in the future.
One can only hope.

I presume we had to be border raiders, the family appeared in Bolton about 1750, prior to that my grandfather reckoned the family came from Wigton, going on the family names only, this appears to be the case in the old church records. my grandfather came to New Zealand in 1897 to live and work for an uncle (I suspect a half brother of his father) here who was setting up farms and towns throughout the country. I was told that we descended from the Black Douglas clan, although most of the relatives seem to be fair. When I discovered that the Good Sir James had 18 mistresses I presumed it might be a bit hard to pinpoint who we descended from. Although if I was living on the spot no doubt their would be title deeds in the local library to look at as the family always seemed to have had trades, buildings and farming land and probably rental agreements would throw more light on this. Although some families live in the area, a few generations of girls means the name has disapeared. I have contact with a Craig Douglas in Carlisle and our fathers look like brothers but we have not been able to discover a relationship as yet. One other person in America contacted me and we are related through our fourth greatgrandfather. It is rather disapointing that their seems to be so few relations out there although my grandfather had 8 brothers and 5 sisters and plenty of male cousins. Perhaps their descendents are not interested in family tree research or are not computer literate.
Cheers Heather