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

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Janet
THE WEDDERBURN BOOK.
Introd, while the first reference to James and Walter make it itupos.sible to fix
their birth dates much after 1450, about when, at latest, Kobert also must
have been born. The existence of these four contemporaries at this time,
and the fact that all of them were evidently men of property ami position
in Dundee shows clearly tliat, in their day, the family was aheady no
new one in the burgh. There is nothing, as I have said, to show their
exact relationship, though their children are spoken of as kinsmen (consanguinei),
and, of course, the more distant we suppose the cousinship, the
earlier must be the date at which we fix the settlement of the common ancestor
in Dundee. But if we assume them to be as nearly connected as first or
Becond cousins, it follows that for common ancestor they had a arandfather
or great-grandfather, who must have come to Dundee before the close of
the fourteenth century. Thus the statement in J.W.'s MS. memoir that
James Wedderburn, possibly son to William of Wedderburn in co. Berwick,
settled in Angus in 1413, and was progenitor of all the Wedderburns therei
Eoay be not far from the fact as regards the date, although there is nothin