Families by marriage

I’m interested in the family networks that influenced each successive generation of Ramsays of Whitehill. Our earliest portrait, Sir James Ramsay in full armour, harks back to an age of chivalry and status. How did his descendants fare? In 1671 his son, Sir John married Anna Carstairs of Elphinstone, in Carrington church. Her family lived in the Canongate. Her grandfather, also Sir John, had married twice and had many descendants. On her mother’s side, Anna was related to the Ainslies, a merchant family. A year after the marriage, Sir John and Anna sued her father for £20,000, promised to him if John Carstairs had no other children. The jury hummed and hawed and eventually said wait until one of her parents died. The father died 20 years later, after Sir John’s death. For her part, Anna died in 1689, having given birth to nine children, John 3rd Baronet, Isobel, George Ramsay, Andrew 4th Baronet, Margaret, Mary, and James, who died in infancy in 1680. That’s three families, the Ainsleys, Carstairs and Ramsays, all related through marriage. Then Isobel married William Drummond and went to live in Hawthornden Castle (the engraving below suggests that it had been improved with a Georgian front). Her sister Mary married Captain William Preston of Gorton, an ancient family which used to hold Craigmillar Castle, though it had passed out of their hands by William’s time. This record provides a glimpse of how the families interacted:

2 January 1717: Letters of General Charge at the instance of Sir John Ramsay of Whitehill, Bt, Mr Andrew Ramsay, advocate, Mary Ramsay, daughter of deceased Sir John Ramsay of Whitehill, Bt, and Captain William Preston of Gourton [Gorton], her husband, against [blank] Wilkie now of Broomhouse, eldest son of deceased Mr John Wilkie of Broomhouse, and his other children, charging them to enter heirs to their said father. In dorso: Certificates of execution thereof, 8 and 18 January 1717. National Records of Scotland, Wilkie of Foulden Writs, reference GD59/141

This action may have been precipitated by the death of the older Sir John Ramsay in 1715, whose debts would have been called in. It doesn’t tell us where Mary and William lived (probably Edinburgh) but it is a reminder that it’s always been useful to have a lawyer in the family!