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A collection of historical and genalogical records

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Dryfebridge Cemetery - burial place of the Johnstone-Douglas family

A correspondent has provide photographs of a Johnstone-Douglas of Lockerbie final resting place. 

Dryfebridge Cemetery is a sleepy looking cemetery that lacks tender loving care and is fast disappearing as it is reclaimed by Mother Nature.

If you are family member, or live nearby, and are looking for a project, then this might be for…

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Added by William Douglas on February 20, 2022 at 17:31 — No Comments

Interpretating families from their heraldry

As you will know, I often post a question based on a Douglas armorial that has surfaced, hoping that someone may be able to decipher it and help with the genealogy.

This weekend, I have been adding descriptors of ancient Douglas seals to about 20 of our ancestors.  These seals were appended to documents for marriages and for the acquisition and disposal of lands, and so on.  They help identify their owners and their activities on specific dates.

A seal for George Douglas of…

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Added by William Douglas on February 20, 2022 at 17:00 — 5 Comments

Newbie enquiry.

Thanks for adding me to this site.

I am looking forward to learning more about the Douglas’s. 

I have requested a DNA kit so that I can share my ref number but it’ll be 2 months before the process will be complete. I’ll just need to be patient.

In the meantime could I ask if anyone knows how the Douglas’s in Alnwick, Northumberland, UK arrived there?

My earliest family member I have records for was Thomas Douglas, born in Alnwick in the late 1700’s and was a…

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Added by Judith Allison Macleod on February 18, 2022 at 13:36 — 5 Comments

Office oft he President  District Commissioner Kabarole District Offices P.O. Box 38 Fort Portal + 256 770 954 9276 Musisa House, Boma, Fort Portal P.O. Box 38 Fort Portal - Uganda Staatswappen: The …

Office oft he President  District Commissioner

Kabarole District Offices

P.O. Box 38 Fort Portal

+ 256 770 954 9276

Musisa House, Boma, Fort Portal

P.O. Box 38 Fort Portal - Uganda

Staatswappen: The Republic of Uganda

Office oft he President of Uganda

Victoria Avenue

Kyagwe Rd. Kampala

P.O. Box 25497 Kampala

Kampala (Uganda)

U9th  November 2020

 

TO: WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

RE: RCOMMENDATIN…

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Added by Werner Conde Zurek de Grotów on January 29, 2022 at 12:42 — No Comments

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Added by Werner Conde Zurek de Grotów on January 29, 2022 at 12:40 — No Comments

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Added by Werner Conde Zurek de Grotów on January 29, 2022 at 12:40 — No Comments

Award from Uganda and the Kingdom Tooro

Added by Werner Conde Zurek de Grotów on January 29, 2022 at 12:39 — No Comments

Letter from Mary, Queen of Scots to the French Ambassador to England

This letter was sent to the French ambassador to England less than two months following Mary's daring escape from Lochleven castle on the 2nd May 1568, where she had been imprisoned following her forced abdication in favour of the infant James VI. Mary's escape from Lochleven was aided by George Douglas, the brother of the landowner,…

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Added by William Douglas on January 28, 2022 at 19:10 — No Comments

Elizabeth "Lizbeth" Baird - "Mother Douglass"

Elizabeth "Lizbeth" Baird was daughter of Lewis M. Baird's Zebedee B. who fought alongside 6+ of his brothers in the Civil War. She was the wife of Andrew Douglass and was affectionately known as "Mother Douglas" for her vital role in caring for her son, George Washington Douglas's six children after their mother, Ollie Marshall's, untimely death in Newcomb, TN in 1922 of viral infection at the age of 30.

Lizbeth is pictured with Jessie Esler (right) with brother…

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Added by William Douglas on January 12, 2022 at 16:30 — 1 Comment

Sir William Arbuthnot of Kittybrewster (1950-2021

The news of the death of Sir William Arbuthnot in October has only just reached me.

Known to many as Kittybrewster, he was a Wikipedian and genealogist, and it seems in his spare time, a London banker.

His brother James, Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom, of Edrom in the County of Berwick PC, reported:

...he had awful Parkinson's Disease, and…

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Added by William Douglas on January 4, 2022 at 11:05 — 1 Comment

New Years Honours - 2022

BBC Wales - Colin Jackson's Raise Your Game - Training ground - Jill Douglas

Congratulations to:

*Jill Douglas who has been appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the  New Years Honours - 2022 for services to for services to Sport and Charity.

See: http://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/jilldouglas.html ;

* Major James Alexander DOUGLAS, Adjutant General’s Corps (Staff and Personnel Support Branch) also appointed a Member of the…

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Added by William Douglas on January 3, 2022 at 13:00 — 1 Comment

Not to be confused with Drysdale

From  the  Kershaw  News  Era , Camden , SC Dec. 24 , 1948

 by Mrs. E. C. Croxton 

The name Truesdale is of English origin and is said to have been derived from the residence of its first bearer at a placed called Troutsdale in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England. In the ancient records, it is found in many different forms: Troutsdale, Truesdell, Trewsdell, etc., down to the generally accepted ones in…

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Added by Russell Lynn Drysdale on January 3, 2022 at 12:51 — 3 Comments

Is this a Douglas seal?

Found in central Scotland, this seal could be the winged heart of a Douglas family. But is it?

And if not, whose crest might it be?…

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Added by William Douglas on December 30, 2021 at 23:32 — No Comments

Douglas History surname link;

http://www.douglashistory.co.uk/history/articles/surname.html#.YckK4MnMLX4

Added by Mark Stephen Elliott on December 27, 2021 at 1:48 — No Comments

Could Douglas have Saxon name origins?

Added by Mark Stephen Elliott on December 27, 2021 at 1:23 — 3 Comments

Who is J. Boleyn Douglas?

Seaforth House, Simonstown.

“Captain Thomas Talbot Harrington, of the East India Company, was born in Wiltshire in 1780, and moved to the Cape in 1814 and built a house which he named after his wife's (Jemima Douglas 1784-1820) uncle, the Earl of Seaforth. The house was subsequently dismantled after his…

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Added by William Douglas on December 3, 2021 at 14:35 — 1 Comment

The tale of Elizabeth and Margaret Douglas

https://blog.historicenvironment.scot/2017/05/silenced-voices/?fbclid=IwAR0r34IayJRpRkDcRCzNRCY1Tna9OTkcYV_j-ynJX9V-DXGFUeLLPbTdl64 ;

blue sky above grey stone building with outer wall and tree in foreground with white blossom



Acknowledgement: Thank you to Dr Amy Blakeway, lecturer at the University of Kent and author of Regency in Sixteenth-Century Scotland, and Historic…

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Added by William Douglas on November 30, 2021 at 13:30 — No Comments

Researching about Rachel Douglas

This Little Tyke is in search of the ancestors of his Great Grandmother Rachel Douglas.

We believe Douglas to be her maiden name.

Rachel (Douglas) Braitling appears in 1880 Census at her Mother-in-Law's home with husband and sons in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, USA.

Of note, George, the eldest, was born in Philadelphia or NYC while…

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Added by GenTrax on November 1, 2021 at 21:17 — No Comments

Black Watch sketch book

A remarkable artist’s sketch book has come to light in, I think, a house clearance. 

I have been researching who the subjects might be and find that they were all in or serving with the Royal Highlanders (Black Watch) in Mesopotamia in 1916. 

With a couple of exceptions, those whose portraits I have seen were either killed on wounded.

A. Douglas.

Embarked, Marseilles, 5th December, 1915.

Disembarked, Basrah,…

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Added by William Douglas on October 28, 2021 at 11:13 — No Comments

Mural of African American freedom fighter Frederick Douglass.

Not many followers will have passed along Lower Gilmore Place in Edinburgh recently, so won't have spotted a powerful new addition to the urban landscape: a striking mural of African American freedom fighter Frederick Douglass.

A close up of Frederick Douglass' bearded face on a mural

Added by William Douglas on October 17, 2021 at 19:24 — No Comments

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Making conections

The more information you can give about the people you mention, the more chance there is of someone else connecting with your family.

Dates and places of births, deaths and marriages all help to place families.

Professions also help.

'My great-grandmother mother was a Douglas from Montrose' does not give many clues to follow up! But a bit of flesh on the bones makes further research possible. But if we are told who she married, what his profession was and where the children were baptised, then we can get to work.

Maybe it is time to update the information in your profile?


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