Tour Scotland travel video of a late Autumn road trip drive, with Scottish music, on ancestry visit to West Wemyss in Fife. The village of West Wemyss began as a settlement around the site of Wemyss Castle which developed into a centre for the salt industry in the area. An epidemic of plague arrived in Scotland in July 1584, brought to West Wemyss in a ship called a crayer. William Angus Knight, Professor of Moral Philosophy at St Andrews University, editor and biographer of William Wordsworth, lived here as a child from 1844. The surname Wemyss was first found in Fife, where they held a family seat from very ancient times as Lords of the Castle of Wemyss, so named from the Gaelic word Uamch (a cave) derived from the lands and cliffs in which caves abound on the seashore. Spelling variations of this family name include: Wemyss, Weems, Wemys, Wemes and others. Spelling variations of this family name include: Wemyss, Weems, Wemys, Wemes and others. Sir Michael Wemyss along with his brother, Sir David, and also Scott of Balwearie were sent to Norway to bring back the infant Queen Margaret, the Maid of Norway, in 1290. In 1513 Chief Sir David de Wemyss was killed leading the Clan Wemyss at the Battle of Flodden. His grandson was Sir John Wemyss who fought under the Earl of Arran at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547. John was a great supporter of Mary Queen of Scots, and it was at the newly enlarged Wemyss Castle that she first met her future husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Sir John was made lieutenant of Fife, Perthshire, Kinross and Clackmannan in 1559. He led his men in the queen's army at the Battle of Langside in 1568. His great grandson was another John Wemyss who was born in 1586 as second born, but eldest-surviving son of Sir John Wemyss of that Ilk, by his second wife Mary Stewart. John Wemyss was knighted in 1618 and created a Baronet of Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1625. David Wemyss, 4th Earl of Wemyss was nominated as one of the trustees for the Treaty of Union with England. In 1707 he became Vice Admiral of Scotland. James Wemyss, 5th Earl of Wemyss married the heiress of Colonel Francis Charles Charteris. During the Jacobite rising of 1745 the earl's son, David Wemyss, Lord Elcho, joined the Jacobite leader, Charles Edward Stuart in Edinburgh.
Ann Wemyss, was convicted in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland for 7 years, and transported aboard the Cadet on 4th September 1847, to Tasmania; John Wemyss, aged 41, arrived in Nelson, New Zealand aboard the ship Chile in 1874; Fredrick John Wemyss landed in Wellington, New Zealand in 1840; James Wemyss landed in America in 1784.
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