Genealogical memoirs of the family of Robert Burns and of the Scottish house of Burnes

THE FAMILY OF ROBERT BURNS. 16
child, Margaret, died 24th March 1741, aged eight years. 1
William, the eldest son, succeeded his father as tacksman of
Brawlinmuir. He married, with issue, but his children seem
to have died young or unmarried.
James Burnes, fourth son of James Burnes and Margaret
Falconer, was born in 1690, and died 3d April 1778, aged
eighty-eight. He rented the farm of Hawkhill of Glenbervie,
but on the death of his eldest brother William, obtained the
lease of Brawlinmuir. He married, first, Christie, by
whom he had four sons, James, Thomas, William (first), and
William (second), and two daughters, Margaret and Catherine.
He married, secondly, Catherine Beattie, a relative of Professor
James Beattie (author of " The Minstrel "), by whom he had
two sons, David and George. The latter died 16th October
1769, in his twenty-eighth year.
Margaret, elder daughter of James Burnes and
Christie, Was baptized 10th August 1722 ; Catherine, younger
daughter, was baptized 3d May 1726. James, the eldest son,
was baptized 29th March 1724; he rented, first, the farm of
Auchtochter, in the parish of Fordoun, and latterly the farm
of Higham, near Montrose. Thomas, the second son, bap-
tized 11th February 1729, was many years employed as a
gardener in England ; he returned to Scotland, where he died
about 1804. William (first), baptized 12th July 1731, died in
infancy; William 2 (second), baptized 12th October 1735, 3
settled in Montrose, where he held office in the excise.
David, one of the two sons of James Burnes by Catherine
Beattie, his second wife, succeeded Ms father as tacksman of
1 Tombstone inscription in Glenbervie churchyard.
2 William adopted the double s in spelling his name. — Burnes' Notes, p. 18.
3 These dates of baptism have been extracted from the Parish Register of
Glenbervie.