John Dempster fl1683-1708

The earliest ancestor whom anyone has found with a reasonable degree of certainty is John Dempster, who was presumably born in the 1650s or 1660s and who married Janet Gordon on 31st May 1683 in the parish of Rayne in Aberdeenshire.

John Dempster is considered to have had at least four children

• Robert Dempster, baptised 22 September 1689 at Rayne
• William Dempster, baptised 19 March 1705 at Drumblade
• Andrew Dempster, baptised 27 September 1706 at Drumblade
• James Dempster, baptised 5 May 1708 at Drumblade

Of course the major difficulty is in connecting the John Dempster at Rayne who was fathering children in the 1680s with the John Dempster at Drumblade who was doing the same in the early 1700s.

The baptisms of William and Andrew, whose descendants this account largely deals with are very likely those of brothers as their father (no mother listed in the baptismal register) is described on both occasions as John Dempster in Newton. The other child is descibed as the child of John Dempster in Chapelton.

Newton is now most probably the place called Newtongarry at Ordnance Survey map reference NJ57223939. Chapelton is still marked on the maps as such and is about two miles from Newton at NJ58503710.

There is a family tradition that our Dempsters are descended from the family that were the lairds of Muiresk and the rather grand witness list for William's baptism does suggest that at the time the family were doing reasonably well. William was a relatively unusual name in the family before that time and it may be that young William was named after the first witness in the list "Sir William Gordon of Lesmoir, younger". He would have been William Gordon (c1690-1725) the only son of Sir William Gordon of Lesmoir 5th Baronet and father of Sir William Gordon of Lesmoir 6th Baronet.

The Gordons of Lesmoir are an interesting family. They were one of the most important recusant families in the north east with a Gordon of Lesmoir of an earlier generation, (James Gordon SJ, 1553-1641) being Louis XIII's confessor, at the same time when the eldest son of the Gordon chief (the future 2nd Marquis of Huntly) was commander of Louis XIII's guard. When or if the Gordons ceased to be Catholic I don't know, but they were to be well known Jacobite sympathisers in the 18th century.

The Gordons were the major landowners in the parish of Drumblade at the time. In 1715 their property was considered to have a rental value of £1,200 Scots out of a total for the parish of £3,066:13:6. At the time a Scots Pound was worth 1/12th of a Pound Sterling.