I was working on my Douglas(s) line, today, and broke through some brick walls. An Illinois pioneer ancestor of mine, Samuel Douglas-10513. came to Illinois from Abbeville, South Carolina with some friends of the family when he was ten years old. His dad, John Douglas, apparently rode out with the neighbors from South Carolina to Illinois, and then returned home and left his ten year old son on the Frontier with his friends; the Andersons and Wilsons.
John Douglas, it turned out, had a brother living in Abbeville, and a fairly good sized family of his own. By 1820, they had 4 slaves. John's brother, Archibald lived nearby, and had a family of his own, and also was a slave owner. Their father, James Douglass-2990, was apparently the heir to a Scottish castle and a substantial treasure, and due to circumstances, he could not claim the inheritance for himself, but it would have to be his heirs who claimed it.
The whole story was written about in 1924 in the Abbeville Press and Banner, and recopied by several people since then. I just posted the article on Wikitree and linked to it in this post (I hope I did it right).
Even though I may be a direct descendant of James Douglass, the article mentions that Scottish law has a 20 year statute of limitation on family claims like this. It has now been nearly 300 years. Still, the thrill of discovering a family legend, and of being an heir to a castle and a treasure, is very entertaining. The story includes digging up dead ancestors, a Signet ring, and missing relatives. It reads like a Readers Digest mystery novel.
If there are any other descendants of these families, I would like to compare DNA tests to validate the lineages.
