Since yesterday morn, where, dressed like a gangster in a black mask, I visited Tesco before dawn I have refused to leave my chair. Simple laziness plus a desire to reply to the genealogy query sent to me. I was glad as wearing a mask I canny breathe and my glasses steam up so not going into shops makes life easier. I agree with the principle, I just canny breathe!
Anyway, some time back I failed to find anything about James, a distant relative. I did the decent thing and gave up. It was a bit trying at the time and I needed a break. Yesterday, once I had restarted this quest, I was happy to discover someone else had been looking in the same area and had not only found James (The Young Yin) but also his father James (the Auld Yin) and further his father John (The Very Auld Yin). All, as is the case, farmers or tenant farmers in the Scots borders.
Making use of Google Maps I can get a glimpse of the land as they knew it. The small towns and villages they knew have not grown much, some not at all, and the area is still dependent on farming for the most part for a living. Taking into account the hardship of the days, Religious strife, all proud Scots and Protestant, the wars that passed through their lands, including 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' not that far away, and I am left wondering looking at gaps in the story whether some men have wandered of to a war or two? Certainly they would not follow Charlie, the would be Catholic King, but adventure may call on occasion.
Farmers at the time, enduring economic and weather led woes, would work physically all hours of the day. Little else to distract them, church on Sunday, family times together, educating them as best as they could, and breeding well, one man had 10 children when I lost count, plus one that failed to survive.
Eventually, great granddad moved into Berwick itself, running a pub near the market with the help of his daughters, one of whom was deaf, and farming a nearby 40 acres. Having seen the vista from the farm land moving into Berwick must have appeared to him like moving into a big city. Edrom still has a mere handful of houses, most of whom were created after his forefathers moved on, and while Berwick has the sea beside it, once Scotland's richest city, it appears to you and I as a very small town indeed.
So, while researching this I managed to ignore the dreadful performance of the West Indies cricket team. Poor bowling, howling batting and nothing more than a desire to get out of the dismal wet Manchester and return to somewhere warm! I do not blame them!
