Old family; or, The Setons of Scotland and America

170S-Q2] SETONS IN ITALY— IN IRELAND. 2^
accept them as a branch of the " illustrious family from which
thev claimed descent." I am of the opinion, however, that
they were genuine Setons, serving in the Scots Guard in Italy,
wounded and left to die or recover, and who recovering may
have married and settled there.
These " Sitoni di Scozia, " as thev were always called,
were enrolled among the Patricians of Milan, an important
and capital city which did not easily open its Libra d?oro to
strangers. They also manifested some peculiarly Seton traits,
and furnished a succession of scholars and distinguished lit-
erati in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.
Heraldic laws and customs have never been well established
or observed in Italy, and a complete change of arms, made
for sufficient reason, would not be extraordinary. The arms
borne bv the " Milanese Setons" — a river, a bridge, a castle
defending it, and a black eagle on one of its towers — would
seem to perpetuate heraldically some martial achievement
performed by the brothers, as forcing the passage of a river
and storming a tete-de-pont at the head of their command.
The spelling of the name is precisely as my own name of
Seton has been written by Italians who have only heard and
not seen it.
Seto/is in Ireland.
''Alexander Seton, eldest son of James Seton of Perry-
mount, Co. Tyrone, Esquire," was admitted to Gray's Inn,
London, on November 23, 1792. He was son of James
Seton, engaged in the linen manufacture at Drogheda, who
wrote a letter from there to one of our family in New York,
in 1797, asking for information about a son named Samuel,
who had emigrated to America, and was last heard of as
settled on " Presque Island " in Lake Erie. The writer also