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THE SINCLAIRS OF BRABSTERDORRAN

The estate of Brabsterdorran is in the parish of Bower.

In the seventeenth century this property seems to have been held in four different portions; one by John Henderson, another by Henry Dundas, and two by families of Mansons. In 1798 the whole was united in the family of the Sinclairs of Southdun.

I. FRANCIS SINCLAIR, son of William in Dun, and grandson of John Sinclair of Dun and Agatha Grote, held a portion of Brabsterdorran in 1683. He married Elizabeth Sinclair (of what family she was is now unknown), and had two sons: -

  1. Patrick
  2. George, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Gibson, Dean of Bower, and had an only child, Jean, who married her cousin, David Sinclair, in Whitegar, son of David Sinclair of Whitegar, the grandson of David Sinclair of Southdun. They had a son, Alexander, who was portioner of Brabsterdorran, as in right of his mother. He sold his interest, in 1780, to Miss Katharine Sinclair of Southdun. Jean Sinclair's grandfather, Francis, had a wadset for 2000 merks on Brabsterdorran, to which she as his heir had right, and about 1738 and subsequent years there was litigation in regard to the claims of Francis Sinclair's heir to the lands, it being contended that James Sinclair of Lyth had purchased the reversion of the wadset for Francis, and that the latter having died in the interim, and his grandchild being young, James had kept the reversion to himself, and had thus acquired the heritable right to Brabsterdorran
II. PATRICK SINCLAIR, a portioner of Brabsterdorran, married, in 1703, Barbara, second daughter of William Cumming, Minister of Halkirk, and his wife, Katharine, daughter of John Murray of Pennyland. Patrick is said to have had two sons: -
  1. William, nicknamed "La Mode". He had been a midshipman in the navy, and was thereafter in the Customs at Thurso. He married Rachel, daughter of Mr. Cumming of Craigmiln, in Morayshire, and among other children had Katharine, who married Alexander Cumming, tacksman of Rattar
  2. James, who was tide-waiter in the Customs at Thurso
In 1670 Henry Dundas, then one of the portioners of Brabsterdorran, granted a wadset to John Sinclair in Brabsterdorran and Margaret, his wife, and William, their eldest son. In 1693 Margaret Sinclair, then relict of John, assigned the wadset to her son, Alexander. Whether these Sinclairs were connected with the Brabsterdorran, or Dun and Southdun families, has not been ascertained.

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