5th Great Grandfather

9th Generation

The only records I have for James is his marriage certificate and the records of his children’s birth. All of his children were born in Glasgow, most of them born in the Barony.

During the 17th century the Barony was not extensively populated. Even by the mid-18th century it was estimated to have only 4,000 inhabitants. Much of the Barony was farmland and Cowcaddens was originally the pasturage area for Glasgow’s cattle. Several of the town’s mills were also located in the Barony. On his marriage certificate James was a Carter, a job very fitting to farmland and cattle.

Due to the proximity to Glasgow the Barony’s industrial potential became evident as the Industrial Revolution boomed. Coal mining had become more wide spread, it was associated first with Camlachie and then far more profitably with the Shettleston area. By the 1760s steam engines were operating in Shettleston’s collieries, preventing them from becoming waterlogged. Textiles were another of the Barony’s great growth areas. By the 1790s the number of Barony inhabitants had risen to 18,500 and the parish had acquired a distinctly urban profile.

James was a Carter when he first married and when his children were born, however as the years passed his children detailed that he was a house painter. This signifies that times were changing, less farmland meant less need for carter’s, by this time he may have been too old for the labouring jobs that many of the mills and mines required although house painting would be a far from easy job it would have bene a great deal easier than these.

As I have no birth or death records I can not trace this family line any further back.

Wife – Helen White

Daugther – Mary McGill Reid