July 2018 Blog Posts (7)

Hi William I enjoyed your newsletter. What you have achieved is remarkable. I have a question for you and it is unrelated to Douglas. In the early 1940s I had a friend from Scotland and I lost touch with him. It is possible that my friend and you crossed the same paths. May I mention his name to you? Henry

As stated previously, my maiden name was Morton and my great-grandfather (George Morton), and all the Mortons before him, were Scottish. Morton, being a sept or allied family of Douglas, has always given me a sense of belonging to Douglas. As I've been researching my family history, though, I've found ancestors from Auchterlonys to Youngs and a lot of things in between. There are at least 43 (possible) clans within the family history I've traced so far. It's a lot to digest. However, what…

Mary F Stafford/Horn and Robert Morton, my grandparents. Robert was the son of George Morton and was the first Morton born in England in my line. George Morton was born in Dumfries-shire but his father had been born in Loudoun Ayrshire, as had many generations before. My research indicated he was descended from John Morton (1748) from Loudoun and Mary Sandylands (1751) there are several earlier John Mortons as well, but the Sandylands line is difficult to follow.

Through marriage into…

On this day 19 July 1333 saw the Battle of Halidon Hill at Berwick, where an English army, led by Edward III and Edward Balliol, defeated the Scots forces under the command of Sir Archibald Douglas  ('Tyneman').

The defeat was mainly down to the English archers who devastated the Scottish ranks, inflicting terrible losses, including six…

Last week, I was helping a researcher who was looking for details of C K M Douglas.

Today there has been a "meteorological tsunami" - meteotsunami in Spain - a phrase coined by C K M Douglas who was a meteorologist.…

Ian Douglas has been fascinated by Scottish history for over forty years. He has just published a short biography of Mary, “Mary Queen of Scots – a Brief History” and is the author of “Exploring History in the Scottish…

On the tombstone, in St Magnus Cathedral, of George Douglas, who died 1611, and Elizabeth Douglas, his spouse, who died 1630, is a shield bearing :—Quarterly, first and fourth, three piles; second and third, a heart ; over all as many mullets

in fess.

Who was he?

The Douglas family played a significant tole in Orkney in the 17th and 18th centuries,…