AND YET MORE PUBLICITY FOR JAMES HOGG!

Well I bought the local newspaper last Friday - the Peeblesshire News - and in the inside front page was an article taken from another newspaper, the Border Telegraph.

The headline said that there were plans to mark the birth of the Ettrick Shepherd, as next year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of James Hogg.

A Dr Hunter of Stirling University and the Ettrick and Yarrow Community Development Company are getting together to promote Hogg's work and organise events and celebrations in the Scottish Borders during 2020. Local people and businesses will be encouraged to get involved.

Dr Hunter is a Senior Lecturer of English Studies and is quoted as saying that "It is really important to celebrate James Hogg as he is one of the great literary geniuses of the 19th Century, whose work is just as relevant now as it once was".

I look forward to seeing what will be arranged but in the meantime the full newspaper article is undernoted.

GREAT UNCLE RICHARD BYERS - THE STORY SPREADS!

About a month ago, I received a comment on one of my posts. This related to great uncle Richard Byers, who was killed in action in the Great War, and was from someone who was involved with a project at Langholm Academy.

Because Richard was born in the catchment area (Rowanburnfoot near Canonbie) of Langholm Academy, they wished to include Richard in their "Remembering My Soldier" project, which had commenced in 2017. One of its' aims was to create a memorial book, to be retained at the school, with details of all the men from the catchment area who had fallen in the Great War - and a total of 264 were currently known.

A page in this book would be dedicated to each soldier, including as much information as was available, and I was asked if they could use the photo and some detail from my blog post in compiling this page for their book. I replied absolutely no problem.

I was subsequently forwarded a copy of the aforementioned page - and here it is.

A CRITIQUE BY BILLY CONNOLLY OF ONE OF MY COUSIN'S NOVELS!!

In an article written for Penguin Books, in October 2018, Billy Connolly provided a suggested reading list, and of the 12 books he listed, one of them was the undernoted - written by my cousin (six times removed).

For a young Billy Connolly, the library was his salvation. He discusses his love of literature and how it has accompanied him through his adult life.

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg

"Now, here’s a character! James Hogg was a shepherd from a village in the Borders called Ettrick. They call him the Ettrick Shepherd. In fact, I think somebody once called him the Electric Shepherd! I was first attracted to Hogg when I read a quote by him in a bookshop in Inverness. He said, ‘I spent most of my youth trying to lose my innocence and succeeded only in finding a higher form of innocence.’ I read that and I thought, Oh, I like you! It felt like he was writing about me. Because with all the reading I was doing, and the playing instruments, and trying to make something of myself and change my life . . . I wasn’t becoming somebody else. I had thought I would become this other person, but all I was becoming was a bigger version of what I already was. Hogg wrote this work of genius, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justifed Sinner, about twins who are desperately unlike each other. You eventually – spoiler alert! – conclude that it is two sides of the same person. It’s like Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde but it came before it. It’s a brilliant book – and it was written by a wee shepherd! A few people have tried to make it into a film, and Peter McDougall did a good version for T V. James Hogg should be a much bigger figure in Scotland than he is. Everybody goes on about Robert Burns, which is great, but they don’t seem to have room to celebrate anybody else, which is a pity. So, go on! Read the Electric Shepherd!"

FOUND!! - A PHOTOGRAPH OF MY GREAT GRANDFATHER

Well, about 3 weeks ago and totally out of the blue, I had a message sent to me over Facebook Messenger, by a Leslie James Byers. It said "Hi Neil. If you come from Gretna you will be related to me. I had three uncles and half a dozen or more cousins there..." And that was it.

I replied saying that I was indeed born in Gretna and that my grandpa was George Byers. This was Leslie's uncle and it transpired that he (Leslie) was the son of my grandpa's younger brother, Marius. So Leslie was my dad's first cousin and mine, once removed. He is 81 years old and lives in Springfield, just outside Gretna.

Leslie also went on to say that he had messaged a Neil Byers in Lockerbie, who he thought was the grandson of John Thomson Byers (1903-1967), the youngest of the 12 children born to James Byers and Mary Jane Thomson. He had received no reply from this Neil Byers (who I had not heard of before).

Anyway, I thought, on the off chance, to ask Leslie if he had a photo of my great grandfather (his grandfather), James Byers, who is the only one of my eight great grandparents I don't have a photograph of. Amazingly, he replied within half an hour, through Messenger, with a photo of James and here it is.

My great grandfather, James Byers

And upon saying to Leslie that I had a dearth of photos from the Byers side of my family, he also sent me the following - 

My great grandmother, Mary Jane Thomson

Janet Glendinning Byers (1881-1962) (My grandpa's eldest sister and the oldest of the 12 children)

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Her brother and my great uncle, Robert Byers (1887-1951)

My great uncle, Thomas Joseph Byers (1893-1968)

Another photo of my great uncle, Richard Byers (1896-1917) (Killed in action in the Great War)

My great aunt, Mary Isabella Byers (1897-1962)

My grandfather, George Byers (1899-1960)

My great uncle, Marius Anderson Bell Byers, and wife Hilda Mary Davis, at the time of their Silver Wedding in 1953

As a matter of curiousity, I asked cousin Leslie, why his father had been named "Marius". He said that my great grandfather had worked at some stage for a Marius Bell, at "Broats Farm". (There are a few Broats Farms, but the most likely one, and the closest to Scotland, is near Penrith, Cumbria). Leslie added that Marius' middle name "Anderson" was after the Doctor who delivered him. His other middle name "Bell" is not from the Marius Bell mentioned above, but is the maiden name of his paternal grandmother.

My great uncle, John Thomson Byers (1903-1967) and his wife, Mary Helen McWhir, on their wedding day in 1928

And finally, this is a photograph of my first cousin, once removed, William James Johnston Byers. He fought in the Second World War, was captured by the Japanese and became a Prisoner of War. He worked and died on the building of the Burma Railway. (This was a 258 mile railway line between Thailand and Burma, built by the Empire of Japan in 1943 and more than 12,000 Allied prisoners died in the making of it).

William J.J. Byers (1912-1943)

Quite a treasure trove of family photographs and all as a result of my father's cousin randomly getting in touch.

THE MEANING OF THE BYERS SURNAME

I received an email today from Ancestry, inviting me to discover the origins of my surname. Clicking on a link in the email took me to the Ancestry website, and this informed me of the following (although please bear in mind the source of this information is from the "Dictionary Of American Family Names") - 

Byers Name Meaning:  Scottish and Northern English. Topographic name for someone who lived by a cattle-shed, Middle English byre, or a habitational name with the same meaning from any of several places named with Old English "byre"; for example, Byers Green in County Durham. Amercanised spelling of the German "Bayers".

And "Where is the Byers family from"?

The above is a map of England reflecting the preponderance of the Byers surname in the Census year of 1891. The recorded number of the Byers surname in the UK in 1891 was 1,266. The county with the largest number of Byers was Cumberland with 23% of the total; next was Lancashire with 14%; London with 10% and then Northumberland with 6%.

It's a pity there is no mention of the Scottish statistics. As far as I am aware the surname "Byers" originated from Dumfriesshire and indeed almost all my Byers ancestors came from that county. The relevant parishes within that county are - Lochmaben, Kirkmichael, Wamphray, Westerkirk, Canonbie and Gretna. All these parishes are located in either the middle or east of Dumfriesshire. A map of all the county's parishes is shown below.

AN UPDATE FROM ANCESTRY ON MY DNA TEST

A note on the Ancestry website states that "Since AncestryDNA first launched, we've continued to add new regions and improve the precision of your results. DNA research is a fast-paced, cutting-edge field, and you can expect us to make more advancements as DNA science evolves".

So today I happened to recheck my DNA results on the website and found that indeed my test results had been updated. They now look like this - 

So, to summarise, my Northern England side is still dominant, but not so much as it previously was. Down to 54% from 60%.

The Scotland side is up from 21% to 43%, although the "ethnicity estimate" previously only said "Scotland" and now says "Central Scotland & Ulster, Ireland and Northeast & Central Scotland".

Gone is mention of Scandinavia (8%) and West Europe (7%), and other regions constituting the other 4%, and there is now only mention of "Sweden" with 3%.

Quite a change in these results and in my own mind, probably more realistic with the England / Scotland split. Also quite specific, with the only other country mentioned in my DNA make-up being Sweden.

As mentioned in a previous post, the average Briton is 36% British, per the Ancestry DNA database, and it would now appear that I am 97% British. This would seem to be almost as British as you could get. But I daresay the results could change again?

ESTHER BYERS AND HER JOURNEY FROM THE WEST OF THE SCOTTISH BORDERS TO THE EAST

Quite recently, I saw one of my Ancestry "hints" directing me to an "Esther Byers", my great great aunt and my great grandfather James Byers' sister. Researching another BYERS ancestor seemed a good idea, as apart from her name (and birth of an illegitimate son) I had no more information.

I decided to check out both Ancestry and the Scotlands People website to see what was held online. The initial Ancestry "hint" was basically Esther's name appearing in 20 other online family trees. Having looked at all this information, it was obvious that some researchers had just copied details direct from one another and even erroneously included information for another Esther Byers, born in the same month and the same year (this Esther being my first cousin, three times removed). Many of these other family trees also had different dates of death for Esther, so I decided to look for Esther's marriage and death certificates on the Scotlands People website.

Firstly though, I looked at Census information and in 1861, Esther (named after her grandmother, Esther Rae) was living with her mother, Janet and her half sister Fanny, aged 8, (Esther's mother Janet Bell, having given birth to Fanny in 1853 - whether James Byers was the father is not known, although obviously Fanny did take the Byers surname) and her brother, Richard, aged 2. The 1871 Census is confusing inasmuch as the Esther Byers I have found is probably my cousin, not my great great aunt. 

So, onto 1877, when, as mentioned, Esther had given birth to a son, David Byers, with no information currently known of the father. This was on 13th May (Esther's 19th birthday). Three years later, on the 26th of November, 1880, Esther married James HUSBAND, an under gamekeeper, aged 23. They were married at Grahamshill Cottages in Kirkpatrick Fleming, which James also gave as his "usual residence" at the time of the marriage. Esther's residence at this time was Fairy Row, Kirkpatrick Fleming. The marriage was witnessed by Fanny Byers and a James Howden.

From what I can find online, Grahamshill Cottages lie about 1 mile east of the village of Kirkpatrick Fleming (near Junction 21 of the A74(M)), and Fairy Row lies about 1 mile south of Kirkpatrick Fleming. Per the Ordnance Survey Name Book at that time, it states that the name of this hamlet is HOLYLEE, not Fairy Row, as can be seen from this quote "this is a long range of one storey buildings with garden attached to back. This place is sometimes called Fairy Row, which is not proper. Colonel Graham states that there was an encampment of monks near this place - but the site cannot be pointed out - hence the name Holylee".

Per the 1881 Census, Esther and her husband, James were living with James' parents and three siblings in Old Engine (?), Lasswade, Midlothian. Between 1882 and 1888, Esther and James had three children, Archibald, Frances and Christina and by 1891, the family were living at 16 Market Place, Coldstream, Berwickshire. They certainly moved about, presumably with James' job as gamekeeper, as Archibald was born in Lasswade, Frances in Cockpen, Midlothian and Christina in Coldstream.

By 1901, James was a coal miner, and the family, now with James' mother, aged 86, lived at Waterside Cottage, Stobhill, Borthwick Parish, not far from Gorebridge. Ten years later, Esther and James were still at the same address.

Esther died on the 1st of March, 1928 (of mitral stenosis (heart disease)) at Waterside Cottage, Gorebridge, with Esther's husband present at the time of her death. So Esther and family had lived in the same cottage for the best part of 30 years. And she had outlived her brother, James, my great grandfather, by 8 years.