The chart shown above attempts to reconcile several sources of ancient Hepburn/e genealogical
studies. The original purpose was, if possible, to locate a link between our ancestor
Dr. Patrick Hepburn and one of the Hepburn branches in Scotland. That attempt has not so far
succeeded.
Numerous Hepburn lines have become extinct for lack of male, or in some cases any, issue.
Yet, from the mid thirtheenth century through the start of the twentieth, the number of
people surnamed Hepburn/e has risen to many thousands throughtout English speaking
nations which are the ones for which we have census data. No doubt their are many more
Hepburn/e descendants throughout the world.
At the bottom of the lineage chart is displayed a compilation of counts found by searching
the name on the Internet. The web based Ancestry.com has more than 50,000 family trees
with one or more Hepburn/e persons in it. At Rootsweb.com no less than 117 user trees
has James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, as an ancestor. The Earl is probably the most
famous [infamous?] Hepburn of all time. His marriage to Mary Queen of Scots and
profligate lifestyle coupled with treachery and treason have made him a figure about
whom much has been written.
'Authorities' and experts say he fathered only one known child, a bastard named William
Hepburne, who inherited his grandmother's estates. William was far from being the only
illegitimate son or daughter of Hepburn/e nobility. There were a great many but only
those who held titles are generally recorded by historians and genealogists.
All of the various Hepburn branches seem to have produced many offspring ... persons who
would not live in castles, be sheriff's or occupy high offices. The Hepburn/e families
were also caught up in the Reformation. SOme remained Catholic; some were Episcopalian;
some became Presbyterians and Covenanters.
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A number of sources were consulted and several false starts were made in the attempt to
construct the chart. After some trials, I chose the genealogical data in the book shown
above. You can read the book online or download it free in Adobe PDF format. The web
url for this volume is/was
www.google.com/books?id=ELEEAAAAIAAJ.
On that web page you can click the hyperlink at page top for 'Earl of Bothwell' or go
directly to page 135 which is where the relative genealogy begins. Entries on our chart
from data found in Scots Peerage are coded in maroon.
This source was chosen as the most reliable based on the extensive citations it provides.
The footnotes occupy a large portion of nearly every page. But, as you can see in the
chart, Woods & Douglas limit their coverage to certain individuals so additional sources
were used to epand the chartand give a more comprehensive view of the various Hepburn/e
family lines.
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One of the most famous and highly regarded works on noble genealogy in the British Isles
is Burke's Peerage. Darryl Lundy has compiled the data from Burke's 107th edition and
presented its contents on the web at http://www.thepeerage.com. Entries on our chart
from data found at thepeerage.com are coded in blue.
For whatever reasons, Douglas's work ignores the line of Kentigern Hepburn but Burke's
supplies it. The two peerage compilations agree in many areas but also diverge. I did
not notice any instances in which they contradict one another though such is apparent
with some other sources.
At www.ElectricScotland.com there is an enormous wealth of information about Scottish
clans and history. Among the genealogies of nobility are two by G.M.S. Lauder-Frost of
particular interest to us. One is "Hepburn of Hailes"; the other is "Hepburn of Waughton".
Both of these have been recompiled by me with extracted data entered on the chart.
Hepburn of Waughton data is coded green while Hepburn of Hailes is coded purple. Hailes
is the line which gave the world James 4th Earl Bothwell.
There are hundreds and hundreds of genealogies purporting to show Hepburn/e lineage
from earliest times. Possibly some of these have useful and true information, but they
typically lack any sort of sourcing or citation. It is common for amateur sleuths to
come upon a lineage posted by someone and appropriate it as their own with no further
research. Nevertheless, a couple of family trees did agree with our chart data and
expand it to include persons no listed in the peerages. I used, so far, two of these
for supplemental entries. One is Jamie Allen's Familiy Tree and Ancient Allegations at
www.fabpedigree.com, which asserts that it is hobbyist information not to be relied upon
as historically accurate. The other is a Rootsweb.com database Hohelohe, Bethune Research which
looks interesting.
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