Wedderburn book; a history of the Wedderburns in ... - waughfamily.ca

INTRODUCTION".
him from Moravia in 164.7 to his cousin Alexander WeilJerburn, third of introd.
Kingennie, we feather that he had had " distres-i and losses " with whicli to
contend. He had then been twice married, though the namo of neither wife
has come down to us, and by each wife had had a .son, for the younger of
whom he desired to protect his property in Ssotland from tlie desi^nis of
his nephew, Alexander Halyburton, whom he suspected of an intention to take
advantage of his absence. He died abroad in 1051. His two sons were John
James Wedderburn, born in 1627, and William, born in 1629, both of whom
were living in 1653-.5-t. The elder was retoured heir to his grandfather,
father, and uncle, the Bishop, and two letters from him to Kingennie, with
the draft of Kingennie's reply, are still extant. I know nothing of the
careers of these sons, but J.W. in his MS. asserts that tlieTe wero
descendants of their father living in Moravia, under the name of Wetterborn,
a.s late as 1816. The last reference I have to any such descendants in the
Scottish records is to a William Charles Wedderburn, the son or frandson,
no doubt, of one of these two half-brothers, who in 1709 was in Moravia, and
as against whom Sir James Kinloch of that ilk established his title to
" Wedderburn's aikers, or the freelands of Aberbrotharie " in the barony of
Alyth, before the Scottish courts.
n. I pass to the second of the four families, viz., that descended
from Walter Wedderburn in the Weigait of Dundee, who.so
Weigau'." ''^^ parentage is not ascertained, but who was born about li.30.
Here I am only able to trace the descent through six fenerations
till the end of the seventeenth century, and in so doing lose sight of
some five male descendants of Walter, all of whom may have had issue.
The name of Walter's wife is nrit quite certainly known, but there is
good ground for fixing it as Janet Nicholson, and he was the father of
two if not three sons, viz., David, who was his heir; William (perhaps
the person of his name graduating at S. Andrew's in l-i75-77), who
was a monk in Arbroath, is sometimes called " dominus," and is expressly
called brother to David in Weigait; and apparently Andrew, who died before
1>15, and to whom William was retoured heir in some Weigait property which
he resigned to his brotlier David. It is clear, therefore, that Andrew had no
issue, and as a monk William cannot have married. Daviil therefore, alone
carried on the line of W^alter, and was admitted burgess of Dundee us his
son in 1523. It is necessary to distinguish him carefully from his namesake
and contemporary, David Wedderburn in the Murraygait and of Craigie,
whose father's name was David. Both were merchants in Dundee ; both
died in the same year, 1-t59-60 ; and both were twice married. The wives
of David, the son of Walter, were (1) Elizabeth Dog. who was living in
1524, but died, it seems, without issue, and (2) Elizabeth Strathaiichin, who
survived him and married secondly William Lochmalony. She is named as
livinf in 1577, and had issue by her first marriage two sons, Robert and
Alexander. Of these the elder died without issue in about ]572-7;J, when
his brother was retoured heir to him, while the latter lived for many yaan.
He is often called " Ale.xander Wedderburn, younger," in the records, to
distincfuish him from his namesake (also a merchant), the husband of iMobell
Anderson, with whom I shall have to deal later. He wa.s
Alexander admitted to the freedom of Dundee in 1582, but seems
med'i627f"*' gradually to have got rid of his property there, and to have
settled in Fife, near Cupar, of which place also he was a
burgess, and is frequently so described. Here he got a charge on the lamLs
of Mountquhany in 1599, and some years later acquired those of Pittorinie,
of which he is thereafter often designed. The date of his death is accurately