Dixie Doodle and His Elusive Ancestors

By George Graham

Where did it all start? Who are we, really? Dixie Doodle digs up his family's roots, and reminisces about growing up in Jamaica, joining a newspaper in Haiti, becoming a real reporter (and freezing) in Canada, and launching a new career in Florida... while playing golf through it all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781794770362

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Dixie Doodle

& His Elusive

Ancestors

By George Graham

Copyright 2021

Chasing Shadows

Family lore says we are the Grahams of Claverhouse and belong to the family of Montrose and Dundee, two of Scotland’s most famous heroes. Here’s Bonnie Dundee. Does he look like one of our Grahams?

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John Graham, 1st Viscount Dundee - Wikipedia

https://trossachs.co.uk/clans/graham/

But I suspected Henry Graham – my great-grandfather -- might be from a Border family since he included Heron in his sons’ names and some Herons – like some Grahams -- were Border Reivers. And I read somewhere that the Border Grahams claimed to be descended from Montrose. Also, the Earl of Montrose is recorded as coming to the defense of his cousins at the Border when King James was shipping them off to Ireland in the 17th Century.

One problem with the Border theory… The Scots traditionally name their children after members of their family, and the Border Grahams have first names that don’t show up in our branch of the family. Also, I’m pretty sure Henry Graham wasn’t born in Ireland, and the Border Grahams were cleared out of Scotland and living in Ireland long before he was born.

What's in a Name? Allegiance, for Border Reivers - Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

Graeme

(To those family members who had their DNA done, if you’re J1-L1253, you’re from the Border, and if you’re I-Y48464 you could be descended from the Menteith/Montrose Grahams.)

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/graham/about/news

Henry is not a popular given name for Grahams. I found it most among the Grahams of Dalkeith. It may also be significant that Henry named one of his daughters Christiana, which was the name of an early member of the Dalkeith clan. Also possibly significant, a Henry Graham who might be our Henry’s father was born at Cockpen, which is not far from the Dalkeith Grahams’ ancestral home.

Here is another possible clue to Henry Graham’s background: Jamaican immigration records show a John Graham arriving in Jamaica from Stranraer in 1841. After a great deal of digging I came up with just one Henry Graham who was born in that part of Scotland (Inch in Wigtown) in 1823. His parents were Henry Graham and Mary Henry. Their eldest son’s name was John.

Could John (Henry’s brother) have gone to Jamaica first and then persuaded Henry to join him?

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One problem with this scenario is that the John Graham who immigrated to Jamaica in 1841 was 20 years old and the John Graham from Inch was born in 1815, so he would be 26. Furthermore, he landed in Westmoreland, and our family lived at the other end of the island.

https://i0.wp.com/fittwotravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/jamaica-political-map.gif

If Henry is from that part of Scotland, though, there’s a possible connection to Bonnie Dundee, who was Sheriff of Wigtown in the 1680s and lived at Stranraer. The Montrose Grahams were also connected to Wigtown. Lilias (Katherine) Graham, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Montrose, married John Fleming, the 1st Earl of Wigtown, back in the late 1500s. Both Wigtown and Stranraer are in the Dumfries and Galloway part of Scotland.

After Bonnie Dundee’s assassination in 1688, the Claverhouse line passed to various relatives (as successive heads of the clan were attainted as rebels). And a grandson of a clan chief is said to have died in the West Indies. Apparently, the grandson was named Henry, but his family name wasn’t Graham (it was Lacon) as Stirlings and Grahams got confused somewhere along the way and a Miss Stirling wed a Captain Lacon.

Here, you figure it out:

http://monikie.org.uk/oldbook-aorf4-146-155.htm

Montrose and Dundee both battled the Presbyterians, so it makes sense that our Henry would be an Anglican if he belonged to their branch of the clan. And he was the secretary of the Anglican Missionary Society in Jamaica.

(The Anglican Missionary Society was founded in Aldersgate Street in the City of London on 12 April 1799. The founders were committed to abolition of the slave trade, social reform at home and world evangelization.)

I believe our Henry might be the Henry Graham born in Wigtown in 1823. But from Scottish naming traditions, wouldn’t Henry have named his first son after his own father? Henry’s first son’s name was John, while the father of the Henry who was born in Wigton was named Henry. Did Henry name his eldest son after his elder brother, then? Or was John their grandfather’s name?

(Or did Henry and his wife Eliza name their first son after her father. That’s also a Scottish tradition.)

https://myweb.wyoming.com/~msaban/SCTname.htm

Henry might have been born in Jamaica, not Scotland. Various Graham families were in Jamaica before Henry was born. For example, a James Graham was granted 210 acres in the parish of Portland in 1745 under a program to bring white Protestant colonists to the island.

History of Portland Final.pdf (nlj.gov.jm)

A Charles Graham married Dorothy Hill Allwood in Kingston in 1786. And a Captain Alexander Graham owned an estate in St. James parish in 1790.

There was a John Graham, a rich landowner (from the Grahams of Mossknowe) in Jamaica around Henry’s time. He had a brother named William, who was a surgeon and landowner. Our Henry named his eldest son John and his second son William, but those Grahams lived at the other end of the island, and they died before Henry was born.

(And I hope we’re not descended from those Grahams, as Robert Burns wrote this epitaph for William: Stop thief! dame Nature called to Death, as Willy drew his latest breath: how shall I make a fool again? My choicest model thou hast ta'en.)

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146634698

He may have been a fool, but William Graham was a lot wealthier than Bobby Burns. He was listed in the Jamaican Quit Rent books for 1754 as the owner of 1,200 acres of land in St James and 366 acres in Westmoreland, while Burns almost wound up as bookkeeper on a Jamaican estate.

A John and a William Graham were listed among Jamaican lawyers in 1817, and they were obviously not the John and William from Mossknowe because those Grahams were already dead by 1817. This William Graham was likely the owner of Liberty Hall in the parish of St. Mary, much closer to Henry’s home. John was probably the owner of Darlington in Vere. And a John Graham is listed as owning 20 acres in Clarendon (possibly the same one who is listed as owning Darlington since Vere adjoined Clarendon.)

A Charles Graham was among attorneys listed in Jamaica in 1817 (the one who got married in 1786?). A Joseph Graham owned property in St. Ann in 1818. And in 1821, a James Graham owned property in Clarendon.

In 1844, Sir Edward Graham, 9th Baronet of Esk, married Adelaide Elizabeth, youngest daughter of the late James Dillon Tully Esq., M.D. Deputy Inspector General of Jamaica. And in 1847, Lady Macdonald, daughter of the late Charles Graham Esq., of Williamsfield, Jamaica, married Lieut.-General Sir John Macdonald, G.C.B. (The Grahams of Esk are from the Scotland-England Border, not far from Wigtown.)

In the mid-to-late 1700s, Jacob Graham, who was born in Cumberland, owned the Lapland and Fustic Grove estates in St James. When Jacob died in 1816, he left his estate to his nephew, John Graham-Clarke -- as well as small plots of land and houses to his six mixed-race children.

The Graham Family - Jamaican Slaveowners (rootsweb.com)

Could our Henry be descended from one of those mixed-race children?

Ten slaves with the Graham last name were christened at Jacob’s Fustic Grove estate in 1816. Their given names were John, Samuel, Robert, Adam, Henry, Matthew, William, Ann, Elcy (?) and Jane. A John Graham-Clarke was christened with them. They were all apparently adults – Henry was listed as 40 years old, so he couldn’t have been our Henry. And the parish of St. James is a long way from the eastern parishes in which our Henry is known to have lived.

Another family of Grahams owned large estates in Jamaica when Henry showed up. They were the Francis Grahams. Francis' father was Alexander Graham of Drynie. Francis married his cousin Jemima Graham from Holland (she claimed descent from Bonnie Dundee).

https://inchbrakie.tripod.com/inchbrakie/id39.html

One of the Drynie given names appears in Henry’s brood – my grandfather’s name was Adam Alexander Heron Graham (Francis Graham’s father was Alexander Graham). And their Tulloch estate was in St. Thomas in