On October 13th, 1736, Alexander Sinclair picked up a quill pen, leaned over the Will of James Redish, and made a capital "A" on it. This, and the deposition in the John Mercer Land Book are the only documents we have to date that he signed.

Does this look like the mark of a man who couldn't write? Or does it look like you or I might mark an initial to verify our acceptance of an already-written document ?

I believe there's a chance that Alexander could write and that this warrants a further search of the universities in Scotland. I've found some Alexanders and a William at Aberdeen. None at Oxford or Glasgow. Have yet to check the others. Edinburgh is a good bet.

We've made a great deal of progress over this past year. The "scour the earth" approach of the new researcher in Virginia has proven very beneficial. We've found many areas that were unexplored. Maryland, the Quakers, Bedford churches, etc. are all areas on which we have new information.

Now, with the new researcher in Scotland, we're digging into the sasines, wills, and specific and rare papers from Haddington and Rosslyn.

Rob has found some very interesting research on liquor smuggling from Ireland via Ayrshire that involved our old friend William Cunningham and another, John Crawford.