From: Alec Cameron 
Hi Listers, my wife Mary Ferguson descends from these FergusonS:

David   Ferguson        1845- 1895 bn Dunse     Berwickshire

James   Ferguson        1817- 1855   do              do
(Agnes  Mickle was his wife, they marr. in SCT and emigrated to AUS 1854)

Robert  Ferguson        1778- 1847
James   Ferguson        1727-   bn Greenlaw     Berwickshire
Joseph  Ferguson        1706-   bn Coldstream       do
James   Ferguson        <1670>-         marr in Coldstream


The Family History Library Catalogue, shows a book about JOHN Ferguson
OF DUNS. It is in hard copy, cannot be circulated, and there is no
microfilm. I was able to get some pages photocopied by mail, but couldna
lock it in to Mary's tree.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Anyone interested in Ferguson, MICKLE, LILLEY, MABON, PATERSON,
HUMPHERSTON
in Berwick- shire please contact me.    Cheers........


ALISTAIR M. CAMERON, Assistant at Mittagong N.S.W.  Family History
Centre

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 My Ferguson is Lilias. Born about 1750-60 probably in Angus, Scotland.
No of my wife's family. I guess your Lilias is the one who marr in 1799
to William Millward there. If so I hope you got yoursef a copy of the
handwritten register!
Cheers.............
ALISTAIR M. CAMERON, Assistant at Mittagong N.S.W.  F.H. Centre
CAMERON RESEARCH, Registered with N.S.W. Dept of Fair Trading.
P.O. Box 215  BUNDANOON  N.S.W. 2578  AUSTRALIA
I have long suspected but not proved, that John and Adam were related to
my wife Mary Ferguson whose ancestry in Berwickshire I tabled in this
List last week.
The source re John and Adam, is this book in the Family History Library,                      1793- 1796      Duns
Salt Lake City:
GENEALOGY OF THE DESCENDANTS OF JOHN Ferguson A NATIVE OF SCOTLAND WHO
EMIGRATED TO AMERICA BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.  by Arthur B.
Ferguson PH.B, M.D. 1911
John Ferguson immigrated in abt 1767/78; he married:
John and his brother Adam worked at the tobacco and snuff business.
In 1779 John returned to Duns in Scotland, and traded there in tobacco.                       1777- 18Brattleboro V.T..
In 1806 he returned on the ship FANNEY to Newport R.I. having sojourned
26 years in Scotland.
The children of John's third marriage were:
Anne
Peter
Margaret
Isabel
Mary
Elizabeth
John
Peter
Adam
I understand that the book and film, cannot be distributed to FH
Centres.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As stated up front, I do not have proven connection to this family. I
would surely like to know, who were the ancestors of John Ferguson bn in
Duns on 18  July 1736, to parents Peter Ferguson/ no mother name given.
Peter's parents "must have been" Lawrence and Janet Ferguson, says the
author of the book and he adds that Lawrence was from the parish of
Moulin in Athol [Perth- shire]. We have visited there, and stayed with a
prominent FERGUSSON at Pitfourie, the late James Finlay and his wife
Meg, who still lives there.
Sweeter after difficulty
Cheerio..........

My wife Mary Ferguson descends from family in Duns, BEW and from family
in Garvagh, IRE.
On IRE I found 24 villages all named GARVAGH, at least that place name
was uniformly spelled. Genealogy is a hobby with a very high labour
content. "on line searching" being responsive to what your fingers tap,
is not as thorough as eyeballing the stuff at a library, the eyes being
part of the brain not just a bit of convenient input hardware.
HOORAH! for the <IGI and the SCOTTISH CHURCH RECORDS on CDROM, and
other LDS sources as these have surnames in alpha phonetic order: John
Charles Ferguson of 1777 will be close to John Charles Furgeuson of 1866
and not maybe 20 pages away like most indexes are ordered!!                           1787- 1855      Brattleboro V.T.
Soundex is a coding that caters for the problem. LDS is just one of
many extractors who follow the SOUNDEX protocol.
Blessed are the Indexers!!
Cheers...........
FT  wrote here.......
 here are a
 couple of names of books that you might want to read. The first, "Hanna of
 Castle Sorbie, Scotland and descendants" written by James. A.M. Hanna, I have
 read through it while searching on the Hanna line.
A "slim volume", indexed. Hoorah for indexes!! He wrote a lot on
genealogy.
 "The Ferguson Family" by Martin Luther
 Ferguson; "The Ferguson Family in Scotland and America" by Martin Luther
 Ferguson.
That book speculates on the <possiblity that three brothers who died in
battle actually survived, emigrated and settled in America. The history
in Britain from 1400s is probably sound, but to hang the rest of the
genealogy on a possible emigration
to America is tenuous. The book is more than 20 yrs old, maybe someone
is ready to write a sequel??
 If you
 find any tips worth while to others, keep me in mind as I can use all helps
 and tips that I can get.
Watch this List! I intend to stay.......
Especially with doing research overseas without
 having to travel over there.
Best place to do overseas research, is from your own home. Go to UK and                       1782- 1782      Duns
have a great holiday; avoid the record offices and burial grounds. If                         1788- 1858      Whately Mass
tempted, then go to the local public library near your ancestral
village, ask to see the Local Studies Librarian. Spend time with ye olde
card catalogue there!!    Cheers.......

Thanks to all of you who who made reply here, and by email. Nice, strong
attitudes and understanding of the issues.
And isn't it great, to have that Scottish skill, to be able to disagree               1781- 1814      Poughkeepsie N.Y.
without being disagreeable!
Nancy managed to put across what several of you did: a most significant                       1784- 1790       do
angle:
 The problem with this
 is that first before most of us can go back to Scotland, Ireland, England,
 Germany, or whereever our Fergason/Ferguson or any other spelling came from,
 we must first figure out who there parents were.  The biggest problem is
 lack of records, name changes for what ever reason, and as I have found
 unless you know siblings names and parents names it is really hard to tie
 families together as a lot of people are only looking for direct lines.
 Until this brickwall is crossed for most of us we have no Ideal where our            Mary Ferguson.
 roots lay across the waters.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
But my immediate reaction to Nancy was to think- but why are the scores
of Ferguson messages on GENFORUM bare of Scottish content, when the
scores of CAMERON messages on GENFORUM are strong with Scottish
content?? Does that mean that American Camerons are better researchers                        1778- 1780      New York N.Y.
than American Fergusons???        Naaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh...........                             1790- 1845      New Orleans La
I think the reason for this, is that there being a single CAMERON clan
and Chief, with well known lands in Lochaber, and shiploads of localised
Camerons settling together in America and other colonies it was
inevitable that families would stay linked in America, maintaining
contact and interest in their former homeland. CAMERON like many other
Highlands clans had considerable military and political influence thru
hundreds of years. OK, as losers, if you like to point out!! but still
conspicuous.
So as Nancy explains it is really hard to tie families together. The
family of my wife Mary Ferguson emigrated to AUS from SCT in 1854.
Records in Scotland are so comprehensive, that we have been able to
track them back to middle 1600s. These were ordinary folk: farmers,
horsemen.
Cheers................
From: Alec Cameron