.

Here, gathered in our beloved South Dakota, are a few members of our Williamson / Mattson Clan. Charles and Luella are to be blamed (be kind, they didn't know what they were doing). We're generally a happy bunch and somewhat intelligent (notwithstanding our tenuous grasp on reality). I'm also proud to say that most of us still have our teeth.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

The Hasty Family. Our New Line to Ireland and Scotland




From the Fortress of Solitude
Pleasant Grove

Hello All,
This has been a frustrating week at the Fortress when it comes to our family history. The posts have been sparse but the research has been extensive. I've spent hours working on what I thought was a well established line on the LDS Church database, only to discover on Monday that the information posted on the official web site is incorrect! What was an established line through Scotland and then into Europe suddenly has dried up with this new information.

My goal is to make our family history as factual as possible. That means we take the good with the bad. When new information comes to light I must use it to modify and or change what was thought. It is the same in any discipline. You work with what you have until new evidence surfaces. The prudent researcher takes the new evidence, weighs it against the old and decides which is correct.

I've done that with one of our Scottish lines. What was our Hunter to Stewart line is today replaced with what I believe is our correct family line.

Let's begin with the Relationship Chart.

8th Great Grandparents
Daniel Hasty b. 1685 Ireland. d. 1758 and Mary Hasty b. abt. 1690 Ireland d. 1758
Immigrated from Ireland In 1741.
to
John Harmon b. 1716 d. 1742 and Mary Hasty b. 1721 d. 1753

to
Martha Harmon b. 1740 and William Williams B. 1740 Prince George Maryland.
to
Nancy Ann Williams and William Cantwell
to
Martha Cantwell and Jacob George
to
Frances George and Henry Fiddler
to
Eldora Elizabeth Fiddler Edwin Sherman Pierce
to
Walter Edwin Pierce and Vesta Althea Dennis
to
Violet Mae Pierce and Walter Albert Mattson
to
Luella Mae Mattson and Charles Ray Williamson
to
US


The crucial change is highlighted in Red. Our line was correct up to Martha Harmon. The old line had William Williams' wife listed as Martha Hunter. The Hunter line then carried us to the Stewart Clan and then into the royal house of Scotland. I can find no evidence that our confirmed Great Grandfather William Williams married a Martha Hunter. There is ample evidence that he married a Martha Harmon.

With that evidence we can today meet our true 8th Great Grandparents, Daniel and Mary Hasty.

The Hasty family were protestants who moved to Northern Ireland from Scotland and settled in Londonderry and from there immigrated to America. So, we lose one Scottish line only to gain another. Your Scottish blood is as strong now as it was when you started reading this post a few moments ago.

Please take a minute and read the history of this new ancestral line my fellow Hasty Clan members.

The family name Hastie is believed to be descended originally from the Strathclyde Britons. This ancient founding race of the north were a mixture of Gaelic/Celts whose original territories ranged from Lancashire in the south, northward to the south bank of the River Clyde in Scotland. They were divided into 3 sub kingdoms, the Selgovians south of the Clyde, the Novantii in Galloway in south west Scotland, and the Rhiged to the south in Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire. 



From 400 AD to 900 AD Their territory was overrun at first by the Irish Gaels, then the Angels from the east, and, finally the Picts and Dalriadans from the north. However, their basic culture remained relatively undisturbed. By 1000 AD, however, the race had formed into discernible Clans and families, perhaps some of the first evidence of the family structure in Britain.

By the 16th and 17th centuries many of our modern family names descended directly from this ancient race, including Hastie. Many of these families were later found scattered, not only throughout England, Scotland and Ireland, but all over the world, surnames which can now be traced back to this locality and time period. Tracing it's ancient development, the name Hastie was found in Lanarkshire where they were recorded as a family of great antiquity seated with manor and estates in that shire.

The first record was of Robert and John Hastie holding the lands of Herthorn Hill in 1376. Thomas Hastie was a monk of Beauly in 1543, and Thomas Hasite later acquired the lands of Gogar in 1567. The family of Hastie are said to have been hereditary Pipers of Jedburgh for almost three hundred years. Notable amongst the family at this time was Thomas Hasite of Gogar. 

The natural division of Scotland and England, an arbitrary line from Carlisle to Berwick, posed an artificial division to the unity of the ancient Strathclyde Britons and their family groupings. To the north they became Scottish, to the south English. However, many of the family structures would continue to be unified clans, powers unto themselves, owing little allegiance to either Scotland or England , having territories and political interests on both sides of the border.

 Soon after the Norman Conquest border life was in turmoil.

In 1246, six Chiefs from the Scottish side and six from the English side met at Carlisle and produced a set of laws veringing all Border Clans. These were unlike any laws prevailing in England or Scotland or, for that matter, anywhere else in the world. For example, it was a far greater offence to refuse to help a neighbour recover his property, wife, sheep, cattle or horses than it was to steal them in the first place. hence the expression, "Hot Trod" or a, Hot Pursuit, from which we get the modern "hot to trot". For refusals of assistance during a "Hot Trod", a person could be hanged on the instant, without trial. Frequently, the descendants of these clans or families apologetically refer to themselves as being descended from "cattle or horse thieves" when, in fact, it was an accepted code of life on the border. 



In 1603, the Union of Scottish and English crowns became reality under King James VI of Scotland who was also crowned King James 1st of England. The Crown dispersed these "unruly border clans." In 1587, an Act of Scottish parliament had condemned certain border families for their lawlessness. Scotland was moving toward breaking up the old "border code". Hence, the Border Clans were banished to England, Northern Scotland and to Ireland. Some were outlawed directly to Ireland, The Colonies and the New World. 

Many of the Border Clans settled in Northern Ireland, transferred between 1650 and 1700 with grants of land provided they "undertook" to remain Protestant. Hence they became known as the "undertakers". Many became proudly Irish.

The name Hastie may well have arrived in Ireland early in the 17th century during the reign of James I of Britain, when six counties in Ulster were confiscated and settled by the protestant "planters" or "undertakers" as these settlers were known.

But there were many who were dissatisfied with life in Ireland, and sought a more rewarding life. They looked to the new world and sailed aboardarmada of sailing ships such as the Hector, the Rambler, and the Dove which struggled across the stormy Atlantic. Some ships lost Thirty to forty percent of their passenger list, migrants who died of disease and the elements.

In North America, some of the first migrants which could be considered kinsmen of the family name Hastie and it's spelling variants were William Hastie who settled in New England in 1685; Mary Hastie settled in Boston in 1848 with her husband and five children.

And to finish, let's once again enjoy our Irish / Scottish Ancestry with this song by Celtic Thunder titled Caledonia (the Roman name for Scotland and the Celtic peoples).