Bairds of Auchmedden and Strichen, Aberdeenshire

ON THE BAIRDS OF AUCHMEDDEN AND STRICHEN.
Grant, said to be a daughter of John Grant of Ballindalloch, and widow
of Alexander Leslie of Kininvie. They had an only child, Lilias Baird,
who on August 16, 1578, married Gilbert Baird of Auchmedden.
This Gilbert Baird of Auchmedden was an incomer into Aberdeen-
shire. He belonged to the Bairds of Posso in Peebleshire, a family
which can be traced back at least to 1487, when a certain William
Baird, "de Posso," witnessed a charter. Whether the Posso Bairds,
who are briefly dealt with in Mr J. Walter Buchan's history of Peeble-
shire (iii. 559-562), came from Lanarkshire or the west of Scotland is
not known, but the fact that Gilbert was a name in the family of the
Bairds of Kilkenzie and Kilkerran in the Earldom of Carrick, Ayrshire,
at the beginning of the sixteenth century, suggests a possible con-
nection between the Posso Bairds and the west.
The Posso line became shaky through debt, and fell, apparently in
the senior line, to two daughters of the house, who married respectively
Thomas Nasmyth and William Geddes of the Rauchane family, and in
the middle of the sixteenth century the estate was halved between the
Nasmyth and the Hay of Smeithfield families. These ladies had a
brother, Gilbert Baird of Posso, whose younger son, Andrew Baird
(1475-1543), apparently on the loss of Posso, trekked northwards into
Fife — which may have been the inspiration for William Baird, the
eldest of the eight Gartsherrie brothers, to buy the estate of Elie, as he
did in 1853.
We first find Andrew as laird of Scotscraig, which had belonged to
the Scots of Balwearie. In 1531 Andrew bought the superiority of
Laverocklaw, in the parish of Balmerino, from John Kinnaird of
Kinnaird. In 1537 he sold Laverocklaw and Inverduvat, which he also
held, to David Balfour of Balledmant. Meantime, Andrew, who mar-
ried a Fifeshire woman, Bessy Learmont of the Balcomie family, had
trekked still further north, for on November 10, 1534, he bought from
John Earl of Buchan, the lands of Glencuthill and Auchmedden in the
barony of Glendouachy ("Great Seal"). The fact that one of the
witnesses to this transaction was George Baird "deArdynhouff"
("Ant. Abdn. and Banff," ii. 380-1), suggests that the Laverocklaw
Bairds were connected with the Ordinhuiff family by blood, as they
afterwards were by marriage, when Lilias Baird of Ordinhivas married
7 ?