The Life Of Robert Burns

Burns Ancestors

In Glenbervie Kirkyard which is in the agricultural county of Kincardine lies a graveyard which is visited by many people paying respect to Robert Burns. Two renovated tombstones which were found around 50 years ago lying among the long grass of the old kirkyard. One of the stones had originally been erected about 150 years ago, and the other about thirty years previously, over the graves of members of the Burness family, who tilled the ground in the immediate neighbourhood. For nearly 200 years after those farmers of the Mearns were laid to their rest, men and women passed by the tombstones with only a fleeting thought of the men whose names were inscribed on them, time passed. William Burness, the son of the farmer of Clouchinhill, near Stonehaven, left his paternal home to fight his own battle with the world. Edinburgh was then the Mecca of Scottish gardeners, and he made his way south to the capital. From Edinburgh he passed to Ayrshire, and there he and his wife made their home in the "auld clay biggin" where their son Robert Burns was born. Then Scotland and Scottish patriotism had a mouthpiece, and the whence of Robert Burns' family was a subject discussed by eminent genealogists and litterateurs.

The poet sang and passed away, but his memory lived. The graves of his ancestors were visited, the neglected and broken tombstones discovered and renovated, and the fact of their presence made known to an interested world. The inscriptions on the restored tombstones sufficiently describe their origin and restoration:-

1. In memory of James Burnes, tenant in Brawlinmuir, died 23rd January, 1746. Margaret Falconer, his wife, died 28th December, 1749. This tomb of the great grand-parents of the poet Robert Burns, restored by subscription, 1885.

2. In memory of William Burnes, tenant in Bogjorgan, who died, 1715; and christian Fotheringham, his wife. This tomb of the great grand-uncle of the poet Robert Burns, restored by subscription, 1885.