1796 Beginnings

Walter Ballantyne was my 4x great grandfather. He was born on the 13 May 1796 in Selkirk, in the Scottish Borders. Little is known about his early life. The first usefil information come in the 1841 census. Walter had travelled north from the Border towns to a small hamlet called Bottacks, outside of Fodderty in Ross and Cromarty. Strathpeffer is nearby.

Walter was a shepherd, and the 1841 census shows that he is married to Helen Mary Scott who was born on the 9 February 1796 in Hawick, another town in the Scottish Borders. Walter and Helen are both 44 yeas old at the time and have several children:

• Elizabeth (Betty) b. 1821 – 20 years-old
• Andrew b.1824-1888 – 17 years-old
• Helen b. 1824-1863 – 17 years-old
• Walter b. 1828-1891 – 13 years-old
• Agnes b. 1831-1913 – 10 years-old
• Janet b. 1832 – 9 years-old
• James Scott b. 1834-1917 – 7 years old
• Robert Laidlaw b. 1837-1902 – 4 years-old
• Isobel b. 1840-1841 – less than one year old

It is not known when Walter and Helen first arrived at Bottacks. It is also not known if the children listed above were all the children of Walter and Helen. There is a lack of documentation to support both place of birth and parentage.

Birth certificates for James in 1834, and Isabel, 1840, show they were born in Bottacks. However, later census information states that Agnes, 1831, was born in Selkirk. Robert’s birth certificate shows that he was born in Contin, south of Bottacks in 1837. The family quite possibly travelled frequently between the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland. They may have been droving sheep or visiting family.

However, it is clear the family fragmented in 1842. This was before Andrew was arrested for horse stealing. The family had recently suffered the loss of baby Isobel. Could this death have been the catalyst that drove the family apart and away from Ross-shire? From this point, there is no evidence of Walter and Helen being together as a couple.

1841 Census Ross-shire

Walter and Helen are living in the small highland settlement of Bottacks, a small scattered township, located one miles northeast of Strathpeffer, Ross-shire, in the Scottish Highlands.

Betty is twenty-years-old and Andrew seventeen-years-old. They no longer, no longer live at home with their parents. The were working as agricultural servants in Achnasheen, approximatelly twenty miles from their home. They are living with Robert Laidlaw from Moffat and his wife Isobel from Yarrow, Selkirk. It is quite possible that they were friends or relatives of Walter and Helen.

1851 Census

A lot has changed for the Ballantyne family over the past ten years.

• Andrew was convicted and eventually transported to Australia in 1846.
• Walter and Helen’s daughter, Isobel, died aged one year later in 1841.
• Agnes is a farm servant in Roxburgh.
• Robert is with his father in Lochs, Isle of Lewis.
• Walter appears to have married Agnes Miller in Melrose in 1845.
• In 1851 they are living in Kearrnacaridh, Lochs, Isle of Lewis.
• In the same household is Robert Ballantyne, fourteen-years-old, and one year old Catherine, who is listed as Walter’s daughter.
• Catherine was born in the Parish of Lochs around 1850. 

1855 – Marriage – Isle of Lewis

Robert Laidlaw Ballantyne is my 3x great grandfather. He worked as an agricultural servant on the Isle of Lewis when he was seventeen-years-old. It was here he met an Ayrshire lass, working as a domestic servant, called Sarah Paton. 

Robert and Sarah married at Melbost on 17 May 1855. Sarah was four months pregnant with their first child, James. Melbost (Scottish Gaelic: Mealabost) is a traditionally Gaelic-speaking village in Point on the east coast of the Isle of Lewis. Robert was 18 years old and Sarah was 22 years old at the time of their marriage. Although Sarah lived at Melbost, Robert lived at nearby Holm. The marriage was performed by John McRae, Minister from Stornaway.

Sarah’s parents Robert Paton, a labourer and Jean Richmond servant, were from Ayrshire.