This shows the rear and cemetery yard of the church, with the remains of Abbeygreen priory from 1104 A.D. on the lawn. The town's main street isn't visible, but runs across the centre of the photograph, in front of the church.

After a search of several villages, cemeteries and monument inscription books, I finally found what I was looking for, to my great satisfaction, in the cemetery behind the parish church in Lesmahagow.  The family didn't live in Lesmahagow, but walked several miles to church there from Crossford every Sunday.

Just outside a once-roofed stone enclosure with monument plaques on the walls, I found the gravestone which you see at the bottom right corner of the arch. The top was missing, and it was covered with scale and lichen.  A verger mows the lawn in this old cemetery, but no-one cares for the stones.  I brushed it with a wire brush, and a half-hour later I discovered the missing top lying nearby.  I placed it on top, and took the photographs that you see below.

The script that William used for his carving is very curvilinear and gothic, quite a bit more decorative than the block capital lettering used on most of the other stones, and on the reverse (east) side of his. The top is darker because it was still damp from the earth that I pulled it from. "Erected by  William Gilchrist In memory of his Father Tho. Gilchrist Who died 19(?) Dec: 1816 Aged 68 years"

"James Gilchrist his Son who died 22nd January  1841 aged 5 and James his son who died 3rd May 1844 aged 11 months Isabella Sharp his wife  Died 21st April 1860 Aged 55 Years. William Gilchrist died 18th October 1866 Aged 69 years"

    Why do I believe Thomas Gilkerson was the same Thomas Gilchrist who is listed on the gravestone?  Because Thomas Gilkerson is listed in the burial register - he died the same month, although his age is shown as 67 rather than 68 - but there is no Thomas Gilchrist listed in the burial register and no Thomas Gilkerson on any of the cemetery monuments even though he was recorded as being buried there, so it seems most likely that both names refer to the same person.  This oddity provides evidence that there was a change in custom in the region as to how the name should be spelled.  Name spellings were quite fluid in those days anyway, depending on which clerk was recording them; William's name was recorded as Gilkrest in the 1841 census - perhaps a transitional phase from the "Scots" dialect spelling which originated in the early Norse influence to the English form (ie. k to ch) which has been considered more "proper", more "educated" and "upper-crust" in Scotland for the past two hundred years. This may explain why there were so many Gilkersons but no Gilchrists in the region until William's banns of marriage were recorded.

    There is further support for this assumption about a name change in the family tree from a descendant of Thomas Gilkerson through his son James Gilkerson to his son John Gilchrist and his son James Gilchrist - the same kind of sudden name shift, and we both believe at this point that Thomas Gilkerson was our common ancestor.  This would make John Gilchrist the nephew of William Gilchrist, but born only eight years later, and both of them would have seen their names altered within the first quarter of the nineteenth century.  The 1783 Parish census shows a list of Gilkersons and no Gilchrists; but the 1821 Lesmahagow census (which was supposed to be destroyed, but a record survived) shows them all recorded as Gilchrists except for three Gilchristsons, and two Gilchrisons.

    Another reason to believe that this particular Thomas Gilkerson became William's father Thomas Gilchrist is because of the pattern of Christian names that William employed - naming patterns are a fairly dependable way of tracking genealogy in Scottish history, because the rules were straightforward, and universally applied.

    A third reason is because a local Lesmahagow historian, our cousin James ("Jimmie") Hamilton (who died in early 2004) claimed that "there was only one graveyard which served the whole parish and that was the Abbeygreen burial ground. He said that no matter what breakaway congregations they were attached to, they were all buried in it" - although many graves might have remained unmarked. 

    William probably became a stone mason during the Industrial Revolution because it paid better than weaving - about twice as much.  There was a great amount of building going on in the region.  He married Isabella Sharp (b. 1804 in Rothesay, Bute; d. 24/4/1860 in Crossford); her father John and mother Janet were a weaver family also.  They were married on December 24th, 1824, but probably didn't recognise the date as Christmas Eve, since Christmas wasn't celebrated in Scotland in those days.
    (Note: Linda Hunter's records show their marriage date as May 24th, 1824, in Dalserf, which was Isabella's family's home church; however, the publication of banns of marriage were often recorded as a record of engagement on an earlier date than the actual date of marriage.  It is easy to get the two dates mixed up. That's my theory for this minor discrepancy. On the other hand, banns were usually issued only a few days to a couple of weeks before the marriage day, so my theory may not really suffice; I need to see where Linda's date was actually recorded, I guess.)
    William and Isabella had nine children, two of whom died in infancy.  The man in uniform in the photo below is my great-great-grandfather Thomas Gilchrist.  Thomas worked from below the age of 10 as a cotton handloom weaver and then later as a mason, and finally joined the Royal Sappers and Miners in 1852. He served in the Crimean War and eventually settled on a farm in Nova Scotia in 1872 after his discharge, where he taught masonry and concrete work to his son William.

    Thomas' siblings were: Janet (b. 2O/lO/1825 in Dalserf), Margaret (b. 5/2/1828 in Hazlebank), John (b. 7/6/1832 in Auchenheath), William (b. 1836 in Lesmahagow), James (b. 1838 in Lesmahagow), Isabella (b. 1840 in Lesmahagow), James (b. 1843; lived 11 months), and Robert (b. 1846 in Lesmahagow).
    [A note regarding the two James': apparently it was quite common in those days to name a new child after a previous one who had died.  This may have had something to do with the fact that children were named in honour of parents and grandparents, so if they died, the honour had to be "re-bestowed", as it were, in the naming of a future child.]

    The eldest daughter Janet married William Fraser, who was the informant listed on William's death record; her younger brother William Gilchrist was recorded living in her house on the 1851 census - he was 16, and perhaps couldn't live with his parents at that age.  Some of Janet's descendants now live in Australia, which I learned when contacted by one of them, Jeanette Byfield.  She also has descendants here in Canada - Sheila Massi and Linda Hunter. 
    Janet is known as Janet Hill Gilchrist by her descendants; Hill was her grandmother's maiden surname, and perhaps she adopted it or was given it as an honorific to her grandmother at a time when middle names were becoming popular in Scotland.  Some of her nieces and nephews, particularly Robert's children, seem to have been given middle names, also - for example, her nephew Robert also got his grandmother's maiden name, Sharp, as a middle name.
    The following fascinating record, supplied by my Scottish friend from the Archive Office in Glasgow, suggests that William and Isabella weren't that well off in their golden years, although you'd expect they may have had some unofficial support from various of the children whether at home or away:

Lanarkshire Poor Law Records - Year 1856 - CO1/47/32 - Entry No. 9
In August, 1856 William Gilchrist aged 60 of Crossford applied for Assistance from the Parish Council. The inspector classified him as being Partially Disabled and suffering from Asthma. He noted that William was Weaving Stockings. Other residents in the house were his wife Isabella [50] and son Robert [11].

The inspector then requested details of other members of the family.
Janet,Married, Wm. Frazer [5 of a family]
Margaret, Widow and Pauper
Thomas, Single, Soldier
John, Md, Van Driver
William, Md, Miner
Isabella, Single, At Service

Assistance was granted to cover the rent of the home and provision for the child Robert. In 1859 provision for Robert was stopped because he was then 13 years old which was the accepted age for employment. William continued to receive assistance to pay his rent until his death in 1866.

Comments from my friend, slightly paraphrased:  As Old William worked for so many years as a Quarrier, it is probable that his exposure to so much dust lead to his Asthmatic condition. The rest of the family were already away from home, as can be seen from the list. Isabella was working at Service, most likely living in with the family she was working for. It is a surprise to see that Margaret is listed as widow and pauper already, at such a young age.

    Robert moved to Renfrew.  He married an Irish lass named Lettia and had a thriving clothier business on 102 High Street employing "3 Men, 3 Boys and 4 Girls", according to the 1881 census.  The census puts him at age 35, and as having come from Lesmahagow, Lanark. They had four children whom they named Isabella, William C., James D. and Annie M. (it was becoming customary to give your children middle names around that time).  I was thrilled, after several years of having only this much information, to receive the following information:

    YEAR 1873  MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE Reg.No.566 Entry No.1  Inchinnan
After banns according to the Forms of the Free Church of Scotland on the 13th June, 1873 at Craigend, Inchinnan. ROBERT GILCHRIST (27), Tailor, (Bachelor), of Broomlands, Inchinnan and LATICIA DRENNAN (27) Dress-maker (Spinster) of Craigend, Inchinnan. Parents William Gilchrist, Quarrier
(dec.) and Isabella Gilchrist (Ms. Sharp) (dec.) James Drennan (Agricultural Labourer) (dec.) and Letitia Drennan (Ms. Carson).
Signed Andrew MacTurk, Minister.  Witnesses John Renfrew and Jane Drennan.
Registered on 16th June, 1873 at Inchinnan. Signed John C. Crawford, Registrar.

    John married Margaret Watson (pp. 30-31 of the Lanark SRI) from Lanark. William Gilchrist and Isabella Sharp are listed as his parents on the marriage entry, so we can be sure of this:

1856 MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE Reg.648/1  Entry No.60  Lanark
On the 27th November, 1856 at 47 High Street, Lanark, after banns, was
solemnized between us according to the forms of the Established Church.
Signed JOHN GILCHRIST (23) Bachelor, Warehouseman, 32 Blackfriars Street,
Signed MARGARET WATSON (26) Spinster, Mansfield Place, Barony Parish,
Glasgow. Parents: William Gilchrist, Quarrier, Isabella Gilchrist (Ms Sharp)
John Watson, Wright, Agnes Watson (Ms Currie) Signed Alexander McGlashu,
Minister of Parish of Lanark. Witnesses: William Gilchrist, Thomas Glaister
Registered at Lanark on 29th November, 1856 Signed John Gray Registrar

  They moved to the east end of Glasgow, to Barony, according to the 1881 British Census. He lived at 74 Barrowfield Street (which is now torn down) and worked as a "Vanman", transporting goods by horse and cart in the days before motorized trucks were invented.  His children were named William (a manufacturer's clerk), John (a joiner), Robert (a dyer's clerk), James (a "scholar" still at age 13) and Margaret, who was 11 years old in 1881.  Click here for a page of records that give more information about John's and Robert's families.
    When I was in Glasgow I saw a huge wrought iron gateway with the name "The Barras" close by Barrowfield.  Later I learned that it was - and still is, to an extent - "our version of the Paris flea market, a rich tapestry of Glasgow life which rose from the poverty of the slums which once surrounded it" (ref).  The site was acquired and developed for vending by Maggie McIver in the 1920's, but it has its roots in the Victorian era when goods were sold from barrows there.  John would have delivered goods for the barrow vendors with his horsedrawn van, in a very vibrant, colourful place to live and work.
    An interesting bit of local colour: "part of the site had been the estate of the late Marion Gilchrist, about whom litigation had been fomenting for over 20 years", making it difficult to procur the site. "Miss Gilchrist is a part of Glasgow's history too, as the woman for whose murder Oscar Slater, wrongly and disgracefully, was to serve 18 years in prison."  This was an incredibly famous case that reverberates in Scotland to this day, and led to the formation of the Scottish Court of Appeal.  Just do a search on Marion and Oscar and see what comes up.  She was no relation to us, however.
    In the 1891 census, John was recorded as living at 78 Barrowfield in "Camlachie" instead of Barony, but it is the same place.  Camlachie is the name for the parliamentary district, while Barony is the "civil parish". John is aged 58 on this census.  His wife is no longer listed, and neither is his second son John.  His employment is now "warehouseman".  He has three unmarried sons still living in the same house: William, a "ShopKeeper(Spirits)", aged 34, Robert, aged 26 and James, aged 24.  Both the younger men are listed as "Clerk".  John's daughter Margaret is now listed as aged 22, but no occupation is recorded; she must have been a housekeeper for the four men.  The family disappears by the 1901 census, but no doubt the children still lived and worked in Glasgow, and their descendants should be traceable with enough time and diligence.
    We do have a Death Certificate for John:

DEATH CERTIFICATE  Reg.644-3  Entry No.1526
JOHN GILCHRIST [61] Warehouse Packer, Widower of Margaret Watson died August ninth, 1895 at 5h 20m AM at the Royal Infirmary, glasgow. Usual residence 79 Barrowfield Street. Parents William Gilchrist,Quarryman (deceased) Isabella Gilchrist(Ms.Sharp) (deceased)  Cause of death Acute Nephritis 2 months as certified by John Hunter, LRCPS. Informant James Gilchrist, son, 259 Main Street,  Bridgeton, present. Registered on 9th August, 1895 at Glasgow
J. Ferguson, Assistant Registrar.

The family had apparently moved by the 1901 census, I don't know where; but no doubt the children still lived and worked in Glasgow, and their descendants should be traceable with enough time and diligence. This is an entry for his son John at an address which is just around the corner from Barrowfield Street:

1901 GLASGOW CENSUS  Reg. No. 644/2 Enum. Dist. 50 Page 15
Camlachie
26 Fielden Street
JOHN GILCHRIST  [38]  JOINER, Employer b.Glasgow
Elizabeth, Wife [39]  b.Coatbridge
John, son       [11]  Scholar
Elizabeth, dau. [ 7]  Scholar
William, son    [ 3]
Living in a two roomed house with one or more windows.

His little son William's birth is noted also:

YEAR 1897 BIRTH CERTIFICATE Reg.No.644/2 Entry No.926
Camlachie
WILLIAM GILCHRIST was born at 5h 30m AM on 27th May,1889 at 26 Fielden Street, Glasgow. Parents John Gilchrist, Joiner (Master), and Elizabeth Gilchrist (Ms. Kinnaird) Married 12th April, 1889
Camlachie. Registered 15th June, 1889 at Glasgow. Signed W. Sinclair Registrar.

    John's younger brother William was a miner in 1856, and joined the Lesmahagow 37th Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteer Company towards the end of 1859, when the country was threatened with invasion from France; as did James Gilchrist of nearby Kirkmuirhill, ancestor of J. (John) Brian Gilchrist, currently one of Canada's foremost professional genealogists.  Nor do I know what became of Margaret and Marion, although Isabella was listed as "housekeeper", age 21, taking care of her 63 year old father in 1861, after her mother died.  Marion would only have been 12 by then, so if she was left off the census, it is possible that she had died.  William's son William was living at home again then also, at age 26, and so was a granddaughter named Isabella, aged one year. Here are the younger Isabella's birth certificate details:

BIRTH CERTIFICATE Reg.649 Entry No.108 Lesmahagow
ISABELLA GILCHRIST was born on 21st March, 1860 at 1h PM at Crossford, Lesmahagow.           Ilegitmate. Mother Isabella Gilchrist, Domestic Servant
Informant Grandfather William Gilchrist & Occupier.
Registered 2nd April, 1860 at Bankhouse, Lesmahagow. Signed Duncan Campbell, Registrar.

    I can't find the younger William living in Lesmahagow in 1881,1891 or 1901, so he must have moved on by then, perhaps to Glasgow, or to a military career. Great-aunt Burnice told me that one of his uncles ended up in Boston, and worked as a merchant, with a Jewish partner.  All I have been able to uncover from this lead is that there was a very famous Gilchrist's Department Store in Boston, founded by a Robert Gilchrist (there are several internet references to it),  but I believe that it was founded in 1824, which is about fifty years too early to have been our Robert. She also told me that one brother - perhaps the same one - visited Thomas in Poplar Hill after he settled there in 1872, but she didn't know where he went on to from there. This is still apocryphal information, sadly; we have no old letters or records to verify it.  Burnice also told me that this brother or another one had  ended up in Australia. It is true that William (born Lesmahagow 1887, died Australia 1945; grandson of Janet Hill Gilchrist Fraser) and his wife Jean nee Gibson and 9 children  emigrated to Australia in 1926, but I don't know of any in the family who preceded them.  William's grandmother Janet Hill Gilchrist Fraser died in Lesmahagow in 1899.
    This is what is known so far of my family which lived in Scotland in the 19th century. With a little more digging, we'll discover more - including living descendants of John and Robert, I'm quite sure.  Wouldn't it be great if someone in those families had saved some fragments of information?

Lesmahagow is a town southeast of Glasgow, Scotland in the County of Lanark. The prefix "Les" is a derivative of Ecclesias, or "church"; "mahagow" is a corruption of St. Machutes, a disciple and companion of the legendary St. Brendan who made an adventurous voyage to the Orkney islands in the mid-6th century. The town is in the district of Strathclyde, the "valley of the Clyde" river (or, the "warm valley" - in pre-parochial days, it was a magnificent agricultural area of oaks and orchards, and in fact, retains a great deal of that beauty even today, although sheep and cattle farms have taken hold as well).

There is evidence that a Culdean (early Celtic) monastery existed at Lesmahagow since the days of St. Machutes. Monks appear to have fanned outward from the Solway, and monasteries and abbeys arose at Sweetheart Abbey and New Abbey near Dumphries, farther north in Melrose, and many other locations, including the largest and most famous, the Abbey at Kelso. It is possible that my ancestors were employed by these abbeys, which were tremendously wealthy and supported huge local economies.

In those days, the Britons defended Strathclyde against the more northern Picts, the "Irish Scots" of Dalriada (modern Kintyre), the Saxons of Northumberland, and the Cruithne of Ulster. The Saxons formed a union with the Picts at the end of the 8th century, and in the middle of the 9th, Kenneth mac Alpine united the Picts and Scots. The Britons were gradually overwhelmed, and the Kingdom of Strathclyde broke up by the end of the century; many of the petty chiefs apparently emigrated with their tribes to Wales, to a kindred race of people with a similar language. If there were any Giolla Chriosts in this movement of people, their descendants may eventually have returned as the Gilchrist Bretnach (= "Briton-man") mentioned earlier in this brochure. A man of this name witnessed a land charter in Carric in 1200 A.D., according to the abbey register of Melrose. (Perhaps he was a hold-over, a Briton who stayed behind when the others were pushed out; but it seems unlikely that his neighbors would continue to recognise his racial identity three centuries after the disappearance of his people, so I suspect he was a returnee connected with the maintenance of the abbey.)

The lowlands were re-populated with "divers tribes of divers nations from divers parts": Anglo-Saxons, Picts, "Scoto-Irish", and a great wave of "gall-gaidhil" from Galloway. In the 12th century, land grants were awarded to Flemish noble families, which resulted in the people of Lesmahagow being governed by the Hamiltons.

In 1144 A.D. King David I granted the church, in the central village of Abbeygreen, and all the lands of Lesmahagu to the Abbey of Kelso, and a monastery of Tyronensian monks (from the Diocese of Chartres in France) was established - one of six in Scotland - under the approval of the Bishop of Glasgow. They had already built the church, within the first two decades of the century, so the grant was rather a formality. A lot of local men gave away large chunks of their lands to this monastery in return for "fraternity" and a sort of afterlife insurance.

We know that there was a Gilchrist family named after a landform, Gilkerscleugh (= "Gilchrist's cleugh"), who intermarried with the Hamilton family when they arrived. We also know that Gilchrist Kidd (also spelled Gilcriste Kide in another source) had lands along the Nethan river, c. 1180 A.D. and for some time after, according to the Register of Kelso.

No other Gilchrists appear for a period of years, however, in this immediate neighborhood. In the parish register of 1624, and the poll tax register of 1695, there are many Gilkersons, Gilkesons and Gilkerstons - sometimes within the same family - but no Gilchrists, per se. And in fact, very few other "Gil" names, which had once been so common in this region. Interestingly enough, there was a Gilmagu who owned land near Gilchrist Kidd; his name evolved from Gille Mahagu, or "servant of St. Machute", the patron saint of the church of Lesmahagow.

In the 1695 poll tax record we meet:

• James Gilkerson, a weaver in Hutlingslack.
• Martha Gilkerson, a farm servant "of fie and bountith" at Craignethan, the famous castle of the Hamiltons, by then owned by Andrew Hay, a valiant figure in the history of the Covenanters.
• Janet Gilkerson, wife of John Aitken, tenant farmer to the Duke of Hamilton.
• Alexander Gilkerson, a smith in Bettans, and John Gilkerson in Moat, married to Grissel Weir. Both lived in lands owned by the "Laird of Stanebyres". Stonebyres was owned by a famous landed family called the Weirs - another very old surname unique to the area - with whom the Gilkersons appeared to have intermarried, and who were subject to the Hamiltons.
• As tenant to the Laird of Birkhill lived Andrew Gilkerston in Pouneill with his wife Janet Anderson, son Thomas Gilkerson and son's wife Janet Gilkerson.
• On the lands of William Menzies of Castle lived Marion Gilkerson, wife of John Kennedy in Eastertown.

In 1755, there were only 2996 people (532 families) in the entire parish (the population of a large high school today!), 62 of whom were weavers and 40 of whom were masons. In 1801 there were 3070 inhabitants according to Government census, 2019 of whom were employed in agriculture.

Quite suddenly, the modern spelling of Gilchrist appears in the parish, in the form of a proclamation of the Banns of marriage of my great-great-great-grandparents William Gilchrist from Threepwood and Isabella Sharp (sometimes spelled Sharpe) in 1824. Were their families there all along, or had they come from somewhere else? On the 1841 census, they spelled William's name as Gilkrest (the only time it was misspelled). The only Sharpe on the 1695 tax register was James Sharpe of Lawwards (?). Isabella was from the parish of Dalserf, and was actually born way up in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. Her parents and brothers lived in Hazlebank, but she settled in Crossford village with William. William was a quarrier, but Isabella's family were cotton handloom weavers, and her sons were apparently trained in that craft when they came along.

Not much later, Rev. J. Gilchrist appears as a candidate for the ministry of the church in Lesmahagow. He applied twice (both times unsuccessfully - he was on a list of eleven candidates) in 1838 and again in 1842.

The population of the parish doubled in the first 40 years of the century, which must have put a terrible strain on the resources and the employment of the region. There were great gas coal fields, and I suppose that it must have seemed to be an area of considerable industrial growth and opportunity to migrate to from the west coast. In the "Annals of the Parish of Lesmahagow", J. B. Greenshields writes,

                "During the last three years" (c. 1850's) 

        "an exceptional state of matters has existed, three 

        voluntary assessments having been raised to assist 

        the handloom weavers thrown out of employment by the 

        civil war in America. A large proportion of the amount 

        of these assessments was expended on the parish roads."

                "The improvement on the Larnark road at Hillsgill 

        was begun by the unemployed weavers, but the greater portion 

        of the cutting and embanking was finished through the agency 

        of a contractor, who did not employ them."

 forward to: Thomas the military migrant

Back Home...