What does "died last vest" mean please?

[mackisack]

Dear Scot-talking friends,

I have a copy of a Claim of Special Service for land that had belonged to my 4x great grandfather Thomas Smith, who “died last vest” (this appears to be the phrase: it appears twice in the document). I haven’t run into this phrase before: can some helpful person translate or interpret please? I don't know whether this refers to a time period or what?

Some background: The claimant, AG Smith, is grandson of Thomas Smith: his father A Smith is obviously also deceased: I don’t know whether Thomas outlived his son A Smith or whether A Smith simply wasn’t bothered about taking title to the land (he was a preacher of the gospel), but in any case AG Smith is claiming title from his grandfather. So Thomas’s death may or may not be a recent event? Any clarity on this would be most helpful.

Thanks,

Marg

[Hibee]

Hi Marg

Welcome to TalkingScot!

You'll find your answer in here...........

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=8 ... opic=16131

Hibee

[Alan SHARP]

Hi Hibee.

That explanation is worthy of being in the TS library, though I don't know if the author would consent to same.

It clearly sets out the factors involved, and the language used, to re-assign land title, at that time.

Alan SHARP.

[mackisack]

Dear hibee and Alan,

Thank you, this makes perfect sense.

From what I know of the Smiths I can now be reasonably confident that AG Smith took the earliest opportunity to advance his claim (he seems from other documents to have been that sort of person) as soon as either (a) his father A Smith died (he not having bothered to claim his right as heir of Thomas, who may have died at any time previously), or (b) Thomas Smith died. (b) seems somehow less likely given that A Smith was fathering children between 1791 and 1812, so by 1833 Thomas would, if still alive, have been probably about 80. And AG Smith says at the start of the claim that he is the eldest lawful son of the deceased A Smith, which rather suggests that the decease may have been the stimulus for the action.

So 1833 is a good bet for when A Smith died, and I continue to know nothing of Thomas except the very little in this claim: that he was a Gardener in Brodie, and thereafter in Forres, and that A Smith was his only son.

This leads into another query: would the claim say A Smith "was only son of the said Thomas Smith" in a Claim for Special Service if there had been other sons who predeceased A Smith? AG Smith says he is the "eldest lawful son of the deceased A Smith" (which tells me that his elder brother J Smith has previously died: he is not the only son, he had at least one brother then alive) so ignoring the dead seems to be OK, he doesn't need to say he is the eldest surviving son. It would help in defining trace parameters for Thomas if I could discard people known to have fathered more than one son: not that I hold out much hope of tracing him, but at least I'd know what I was looking for.

I really like being clear about what I don't know, so this is very helpful.

And I love the wording of the claim: "Honorable persons and Good men of Inquest, Unto your Wisdoms say, I AG Smith..." before it gets bogged down in describing the land boundaries in the convoluted way of such documents.

Thanks again,

Marg

[runmerry]

Hi Marg,

You've probably seen them all on

http://libindx.moray.gov.uk/mainmenu.asp

Grandfather Thomas seems to have quite a bit of land.


Regards

Jen

[mackisack]

Dear Jen,

Thanks for telling me about this. I hadn't seen the list of miscellaneous articles before. The two 1769 sasines are probably the two parcels of land that are the object of the claim of special service that I have (the fourth item on the list and the only one that I knew about): it says explicitly that one of them previously belonged to William Main. I shall pursue the sasine for Christian Smith in Brodie, though, to see if possible why Thomas executed a heritable bond. Was there some custom that I don't know about?

Thomas owned two adjoining parcels of land to the north of the Burgh of Forres and south of the Mosset Burn, or at least where the Burn had previously run that was now a road... I shall have to try and find an early-1800s map of Forres.

I had another thought about the was-he-an-only-son question: presumably if he had not been an only son, or else not the eldest, AG Smith would have had to prove the death without male issue of his uncle to establish his title? If I were in Scotland and not in Australia I could go and look at other sasines or claims of service to see what was the custom, but from here it's very frustrating.

So thank you again for adding some more little pieces to my jigsaw.

Cheers,

Marg