Query: “I think we can all agree that there is nothing less interesting than someone else's family tree. Perhaps someone could help me with the ancestors of Allan Caldwell, coalminer of St Quivox and his wife, Janet Guthrie. Seven of their children were baptized at St Quivox in the late 1700's.” –Tom Caldwell, posted 8/20/02
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Reply: “They were tall, rugged people who lived in the mountain fastness of their native land, on a diet of oatmeal porridge and whisky. They wore kilts of a tartan weave, played a defending musical instrument called the bagpipes, were immediately hospitable, but cautious with money...They were sparing with words, but when they spoke they spoke the truth. They had a hard and Spartan religious faith and regarded virtually any activity on a Sunday as a grave sin. When they left their native land, they immediately rose to the top in other peoples’ industries and professions. – Clifford Hanley, The Scots (1980).

Query: “It is not beyond possibility that Allan Caldwell was a Caldwell from an Irish family migrating back to Scotland.” –Tom Caldwell, posted 8/20/02

Reply: “Among the earliest Irish migrations were those of the Danish dynasty in control of Dublin, who then conquered York (then in Northumberland) beginning in the latter half of the ninth century and developed it as a urban center in the first half of the tenth century. http://www.ncte.ie/viking/dubhist.htm

Chorus: Tell us more, papa.

“York was already a major port for trade with Europe. The Anglo-Danish of York developed a trade route overland through the lowlands of Scotland all the way to Dublin. Both Dublin and York were manufacturing centers. Archeologists have uncovered silver hoards scattered along coasts and rivers of Scotland that had been left there by these Anglo-Dane traders. There are remnants of the tenth century manufacturing facilities and evidence of dense urban populations of the tenth century in Dublin and York. Of importance to Caldwell’s is that Dublin and York were among the first urban communities engaged in trade and manufacture impacting medieval lowland Scotland. Access to the lowlands was probably one major reason for battles fought along the trade routes. R.A. Houston and W. W. Knox (eds) The New Penguin History of Scotland (Allen Lane/The Penguin Press, 2001), p. 67. This history possibly provides an option for explaining the surprising presence of Anglo-Saxon (Caldwell) and Danish placenames (Neilston) in sparingly occupied Renfrewshire. Other options include the fact that the Abbeys and Parishes of the lowlands in the tenth and easrly eleventh century were under the control of the Archbishop of York. Malcolm Canmore's wife, Margaret, from Anglican Northumbria, may have played a role, as did King David I (who grew up in England, and invited many English knights to settle in Scotland) The vast majority of these ancient royal charters have been lost and we probably never will know with certainty who chartered the first Caldwell Estate in Scotland.
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Caldwell, North Riding, Yorkshire, lies close to the road from York to Edinburgh.
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The road north from York crossed a ford of the River Tweed in Northumberland called Coldstream, then continued on to Edinburgh, and from there, west to the Clyde River Valley, with some traders traveling southwest from Glasgow through Renfrewshire and Ayrshire to the Scottish coast. An illustration of this ancient road through Coldstream ford on the Tweed River, as well as roads from Glasgow west to the coast, can be found in the booklet, David Ross, On the Trail of William Wallace, 1999. http://www.macbraveheart.freeserve.co.uk/html/books/d_ross/trailww.htm
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From the peaks of the mountains (“laws”) encircling the Caldwell Estate, in present day Renfrewshire, the Irish coast could be seen. The artesian wells at “Caldwell” would have provided a welcome respite for overnight travelers midway between Glasgow and the Scottish western coastline.
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Chorus: They say history is what never took place written by a person who was never there. What can you tell us about Tom's ancestor, Allan?
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Beginning in the 1700's, there were ever increasing emigrations from Scotland and Ireland. Before the American Revolution, most emigrants went to North America. Thereafter, large numbers emigrated to Australia. The emigration was mostly male, leaving behind great many unmarried Scottish women. At least one-fifth of the women reaching 50 years of age had never been married. A young single Caldwell man from Ireland would likely find both a job in the coal mines and a wife, and perhaps even an abandoned house, if he chose to migrate to Ayrshire or Renfrewshire. David Andrew Caldwell