SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



I 



GENEALOGICAL AND FAMILY NOTES 



I 



"AHE :< Sir-name of Baird," we are told by William 

 Baird of Auchmedden in his work on the subject, 1 

 "is originally from the south of France, where 

 there were several families of it in the reign of Louis IV, 

 and it is said are still; but the first of the name mentioned 

 in Britain came from Normandy to England with William 

 the Conqueror." 



"From the period when it first appears in Scotland, 

 there is reason to believe that some of that name came here 

 with King William the Lyon, when he returned from his 

 captivity in England, anno 1174; as it is agreed by all 

 our historians, several English gentlemen did. For it 

 is certain that in less than sixty years after that period, 

 they possessed fine estates and had made good alliances 

 in the south and southwest counties of Scotland. Al- 

 though in times so remote, in which other families, as 

 well as those of the Baird name, have suffered eclipses, or 

 removal from one part of the kingdom to another whereby 

 frequently their archives have been lost, it now may be 

 impossible to make out an exact genealogy of any one 

 of them, yet the records by historians of unquestionable 

 credit show that the name was both ancient and honorable 

 in Scotland as well as in France and England." The 



1 Reprint, edited by W. N. Fraser, John Camden Hotten, London, 

 1870. The original manuscript dates from one hundred years earlier. 



