English or Scottish? By Birth or Blood?

[Angela Louise Morton McGurk]

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 the Morton line, my ancestors also incluses McMurdo, Nisbet, Gilchrist, Wilson, Cameron, Findlay, and possibly Broun and Bruce, all in Scotland.

Even following other 'English' lines of ancestry, such as George Morton's wife Isabella Jane Reavely, we end up in the borders, in North Northumberland/Berwickshire. The line seems to follow on to Wintrip, Pringle, Davidson, and Vetch in Scotland in the early 1800s right through to the late 1600s where the line goes cold. There are also some potential Rogersons and Atkinsons in the borders, but I have been unable to trace them further back than 1750s, unfortunately, except to confirm they remaind in the borders.There are also another branch of Davidson, who married with the Forster line who seemed to be tracing back northwards and seem to hint towards Scottish heritage but I wouldn'the like to say that's definite as it was much harder to trace than the Morton line.

Every line followed from George and his wife can be traced back to Scotland or the very north of Northumberland before the trail goes cold.

Mary Stafford was the daughter of Winifred Davidson and Robert Henry Stafford. The Stafford line comes from Ireland, following the paternal name. However, through various marriages we get Davidson, Forster, Grieve, and Gowan. The Gowan line goes back to Scotland, the Forsters and Grieves seemed focussed around Berwick-Upon-Tweed. I can't get further back than 1700, but due to how common the Grieve name was in Scotland prior to 1700, I would expect that to lead back to Scotland too. The Forster line is currently hard to follow, all I know for certain is that they were mainly around Bamburgh and Berwick.

The Gowan line also leads back to a Ramsay by a 1742 marriage in Dunbar, Scotland. Ramsay takes us to a marriage to a Cockburn in about 1706 in Edinburgh. After that, the line gets hard to follow.

Every line I follow on the Morton sidea of my family leads to either Scotland, or to English border families from the Reiver area, such as Forster and Charlton, and in a few cases (Stafford, Corr, Neal, Henigan) to Ireland.

When I began researching my heritage I didn't expect almost every line I followed on my father's, both paternal and maternal to lead back to Scotland, but so far it does, even where a Scot marries an English person, follow the English person's line back and it leads to Scotland because we're historically border people who crossed from Scotland to England freely. Reiver clans had Scottish and English members. Therein lies the reason I will call myself British but not English. I was born in England, as was my father and his father, but when following all possible paternal lines, they lead back to Scotland. The few English are border people, who could've married Scots anyway through proximity to a border both sides were happy to cross. My family history is more tied up with Scotland than it is with England. Add in the Irish lines and I'm far more... celtic...? Than I am English. The furthest south any of my ancestors made it on my father's side was South Shields, which is just south of the eastern end of Hadrian's wall.

I am currently sat wearing a Douglas tartan shawl because I was born a Morton. My great-grandfather was a Scottish Morton, and Morton is a Douglas sept/family. Most of my heritage on the Morton sidea leads to Scotland. I still need to research my mother's side, or her Maternal side at least (my granda on mam's side was Polish Ukrainian, but so far the maternal side are heading North again.

I am a Morton of Scottish descent, and that heritage comes from the two adults in the photo, my grandma and grandad.