Every family tree has a ‘character’ and I suppose David Hackston is mine.  It seems to be the thing that drives many family historians in their research is proving, or not,  the link to that elusive famous ancestor!  Whether they be a royal or a villain we all seem to have a particular ‘character’ in the cupboard.

Hackston (or Halkerstone, Haxton, Hackstoun or a variety or other spellings…..) was a 17th century covenanter and hanged, drawn and quartered at the cross of Edinburgh on 30th July 1680.  His execution was a particularly brutal event and a very nasty end, to what seems to have been, a remarkable man.   Famously, or infamously depending on your perspective , Hackston is connected to the killing of archbishop Sharpe near Cupar in Fife.  Sir Walter Scott writes of a mysterious character sitting on his horse with his face covered by a cloak, the stuff of adventure book stories and it seems some inspiration to Robert Louis Stevenson.  Whilst I have a general interest in history my interest in this case is genealogical in nature.  Those who wish to read more of the actual historical events may do so by clicking here…

I was brought up on stories from my grandmother that we were descended from Hackston.  Other that the common family name (my mother was a Hackston) there didn’t seem to be much more to the story until….  around 2004 I published my first version of family-history-scotland.co.uk and to my surprise, very quickly began to get feedback from around the world.  Long after the death of my grandmother I was getting email and comments from completely seperate branches of the family who, like me, had been raised on similar stories.  Now I know that this isn’t proof but it certainly helps re-inforce the old “there’s no smoke withouth fire” adage.

A number of years ago I was discussing this with an elderly aunt (who was also a bit of a history enthusiast) who was confident that Hackston died ‘without issue’ .  It seems that part of this confidence derives from documents such as “Old Families”.   Helenus Hackston lodged his genealogy with the Lord Lyons office and this has been accepted  since that time.  However, it should be noted that Helenus was establishing a line of inheritance as it stood at that time, i.e. legitimacy through a MALE blood line.

My interest however, as stated earlier, is of a genetic nature and there seems to be some circumstancial eveidence to support further investigation.  For example a number of documents talk about “John  Balfour  of  Kinloch, nicknamed  Burley, who was  David  Hackston`s  brother  in  law”.  This either places Hackston as being married to a sister of Kinloch, or, Kinloch being married to a sister of Hackston.  Additionally, whilst awaiting execution Hackston is noted, amongst other things, to have written letters to a “lady of his accquaintance”.  Both lines of investigation leave enough room for the possibility of a direct blood line relationship, albeit not a line of inheritance or legitimate.

And I guess that leads me on to my first DIRECT Hackston connection but its late and I think I’ll leave that until the next post….

 

P.S.  I’m actually receiving around 500 new visitiors every month, apart from the spammers everyone else seems a bit shy in contributing.  Please feel free to register and add your comments, please be assured I don’t pass on your email details to anyone.

Thanks,

Bill