Do You Have Any Family Connections To "Famous or Notorious Persons"...

[malthaussen]

18. Allegedly.

On my mother's side, in the direct line, we are supposed to be descended from a Covenanting martyr shot in his own dooryard in front of his wife and children back around the turn of the 18th century. This link was asserted by Mom's great-uncle, who did a family genealogy back in the 1950s.

Certain problems arise with the assertion, because it is not documented. This is compounded by the fact that her family's name is Brown. The martyr in question was one John Brown -- and just to make it more absurd, around the same time two other "John Browns" were murdered in the same area as dissenters. It was a bad period to be a Covenanter. Why my g-g-uncle decided we were related to "John Brown of Priesthill" is a mystery to me. Out of idle curiosity, I checked the sources he did use and even emailed the descendants of the family who are still in Scotland around the turn of the present century. We agree that the connection is probably factitious. It does remain, however, that my mother's family did flee Scotland for Northern Ireland at the time, and did move from there to York County in the colony of Pennsylvania in the 1750s.

John Brown of Priesthill made the history books and there is a modest monument to his memory on the moors near Muirkirk.

-- Mal