Scottish History

I was reading an article in Family Tree Magazine on finding Scottish Ancestors. I have spent quite a bit of time on the Scotsland People Website as the article suggests, and have found many ancestors dating back to the 1700s in Scotland. I am sure I can find more information if I continued to search this website, but for now I thought I would concentrate on the history of where my ancestors came from in Scotland.

I started with Thomas Hutchison, my 5th great grandfather, on my Dad's side. He was born in Murroes, Forfar, Scotland between 1785 and 1791 - (now that county is called Angus rather than Forfar). So far I have not found too much information on Murroes, other than the top landowners and some other statistics from the following books on Google Books. The new statistical account of Scotland. (1845). Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood and Sons. and Warden, A. J. (1880). Angus or Forfarshire, The land and people, descriptive and historical. Dundee: C. Alexander &.. Here is a brief descripton of Murroes that was written in 1803 from the following gazeteer on the Genuki website : The Gazetteer of Scotland, W Chalmers, Dundee 1803 : "Muirhouse or Murroes, a parish in Forfarshire; about 5 miles from Dundee, on the road from that place to Brechin. It is of small extent, and the greater part is arable. There are several old castles viz, Ballumbie, the property of the Hon William R Maule; Wester Pworie, the property of Colonel Fotheringham of Powrie; Easter Powrie, the property of Mr Wedderburn; and Wester Gaigie, the property of Captain Guthrie of Guthrie. On the property of Colonel Fotheringham is a valuable marl pit. The parish abounds with freestone."

While I was searching for historical information, I did come across a website which lists parishes in Scotland, ScotsFamily. For the parish of Murroes, it states records were kept as early as 1698. I have Thomas Hutchison's birth listed between 1785 and 1791, which means I should be able to find his birth record in the parish registers. I have looked on Scotland People's parish records already, but was not able to come up with his birth record. I recently did a search for any Hutchison's born in Murroes for that time period, and only came up with one, a Janet Hutchison, child of David (Thomas' father is also David according to his death record). I then searched familysearch.org for the batch number of C113132, which is for the parish of Murroes for 1698-1819 for any Hutchins or Hutchisons and came up with nothing. Looking again at Janet's birth record, it states that Janet was born "in ground of Ballumbie". As stated in the history of Murroes above, Ballumbie is one of the castles of Murroes, so perhaps Thomas and his family lived and worked on the land of the Ballumbie castle or House, as in Thomas' death record of 1859, his father David (deceased) was listed as a farm servant. Thomas is also listed as an agricultural laborer in the 1841 census, although it is for the parish of Strathmartine, not Murroes. It could also be that Ballumbie is just how they described the area they lived in of Murroes, and perhaps just where Thomas was born.