When James Barclay, my 3 times great-grandfather, was born on 12 March 1769 in Abercorn, West Lothian, his father James was 25 and his mother Marion 22. He married Elizabeth Lindsay on 23 November 1792 in his hometown. They had eight children over 17 years. He died on 4 December 1825 in Abercorn, aged 56, and was buried in Ecclesmachan, West Lothian.
Abercorn was a small coastal parish facing the Firth of Forth in the old county of West Lothian. It was mainly a rural farming community with a modest population. Local life was shaped by the large Hopetoun Estate. Tenant farmers worked on farms in the parish from the mid-18th to the end of the 19th century.
James’s father, James, was the tenant farmer at Fawnspark, “a small farm house one story high with offices and threshing machines, all in good repair; there is a garden and a small arable farm attached. Tenanted by James Barclay. The property of the Earl of Hopetoun”.
James, like his brothers and sisters, was likely born in Fawnspark, and christened in Auldcathie. Nothing remains of the old village except the ruins of Auldcathie Kirk, now a suburb west of Winchburgh in West Lothian.
James married Elizabeth Lindsay, and between 1793 and 1810, they had eight children: James (1793), Marion (1795), Betty (1798), William (1800), John (1802), George (1805), who unfortunately died that same year, George John (1806), and Robert (1810). All of their children were born in Duntarvie, which is located just a short distance east of Old Cathy (Auldcathie), as shown on the map above.
James died in 1825 at Fawsnpark and is buried in Ecclesmachan. He spent his entire life in the small area of West Lothian around Winchburgh.
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