Fairholm & Fairholme Family Trees Worldwide
Home	Family name	English branches	Scottish branches	World branches	Contributors
Main	Edinburghshire &  Borders	Edinburghshire &    Lanarkshire	Firth of Forth	Ferme
		Main branch
		This page sets out information that we have found about the Main branch of Fairholm in Scotland. So far, we have 444 people on this tree.
		The early family
Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash		This branch now starts with James Fairholm and Margaret Greig, who were possibly married in Edinburgh in 1762.  James was a wig maker.  They had three sons and 3 daughters, but so far we only have descendants for their eldest William Fairholm / Fairholme, who married Jean McGill in 1798 at Liberton, Edinburghshire, (later Midlothian, but now part of Edinburgh City). Many of their descendants have stayed in the Lothians, but others have spread throughout Southern Scotland, and into parts of England and beyond. Up to the mid 1800s, there were several recorded variants of the surname - Fairholm, Fairholme, Fairm, Fairon, and Ferme. But these eventually evolved as Fairholm, except for one family group in Southern England, which is known as Fairholme.
		Hawick
We have lost the source of this image and so we have not been able to seek permission to include it on the site. If anyone knows the owner of the copyright then please let us know.		Hawick (pronounced 'hoyk' rather then 'hay-wick') is the largest town in the borders area.  It has a history associated with hoisery and knitwear manufacture.   Many Fairholm family members lived in the town over many generations; several Fairholm families lived on the street shown in the photograph from the late 1800s.
		The Emily - Amelia Puzzle
Photograph by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash		In the mid-1800s near to Edinburgh two woman seemed to have married men called Anstruther Fairholm - Emily Williamson and Amelia Clark.  Each had several children and they lived in the same area.  However, the ages of the children overlapped and there was only one Anstruther.  Was there a problem with the records?  Was Anstruther a bigamist?  To complicate matters further Anstruther's surname was variously recorded as Fairholm, Fairm, Fairms and Ferme. Emily Williamson married her Anstruther in 1839 and there are records for three children born between 1840 and 1846. No record was found for the marriage of Amelia Clark and her Anstruther, but they had three recorded children between 1844 and 1857. Anstruther had other children for which a baptism record has not been found yet so their mothers are not known from records. After a lot of head-scratching and extensive research, three records led to an interesting conclusion: 1. The birth record for Catherine Fairm in 1855 states that she was the eighth child of Emily Fairm (nee Williamson) and states the number of Emily's children by gender and how many had died young.  The total of children does not match the number of children shown as born by Emily Williamson to Anstruther by that date or with the addition of the children with unknown mothers. 2. Amelia Fairholm's death certificate for 1880 states that her mother was Amelia Clark and that her father was reputed to be William Williamson. 3. In the 1841 and 1851 censuses Anstruther's wife was recorded as Amelia Williamson or Fairm and Amelia Williamson respectively. In the absence of any further evidence, it appears that Emily and Amelia were the same person.  For some unknown reason, it looks as if she used two different forenames and one of two surnames for her maiden name, but did not do so consistently from one particular time.  Clearly, she had no idea how frustrating this would turn out to be for family researchers in the years to come.
www.fairholmfamilytrees.info