BILLY THE KID

A LIKELY SCENARIO...

To fully understand this scenario, you must trust that certain things happened for the reasons I am about to give you here. Beforehand, there are a few facts that you need to understand to fully appreciate what happened back in Scottish history that brought about the evolution of surnames. Those events were also the causes of certain other events taking place that dictated an identifiable future.

If we go back to the days when the Romans occupied England, Hadrian was Roman emperor from 117 to 138 CE and he is known as the third of the Five Good Emperors (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius) who ruled justly. On a visit to England in 122 CE he instructed that a wall was to be built and guarded to keep the hordes of the Borders Region out of England. It still exists today running from one side of the Borders to the other side and in some respects defines the Borders of ancient times. To better visualize the situation, you must realize that the Kings and Queens of England found their roots in London from the earliest of times. On the other hand, the Kings and Queens of Scotland found their roots in Edinburgh.

In between the two areas lay the Borders, an unruly place in many respects that saddled the Scottish and British official border. It was split into six different districts with different rules of control and operation, a place that would eventually develop into the home of a group officially known as the Border Reivers. Across the Borders there were officially some 77 family names predominate as Border Reivers, I am descended from something like a dozen of them. The fiercest of the Border Reivers were known to be the Kerr family.

Robert the Bruce, or King Robert I (11 July 1274 – 7 June 1329), was King of Scots from 1306 to his death in 1329.

Robert was one of the most famous warriors of his generation and eventually led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against England. He fought successfully during his reign to regain Scotland's place as an independent country and is now revered in Scotland as a national hero. As King of Scotland, he harnessed the fighting strength of the borders by attacking the British and then racing home to Scotland with them in pursuit. However, what he taught his followers in the 12th century became a way of life for the next 350 years. The practice of the British army back then was to purchase meat, grain, and vegetables from local farms, as they were not equipped to carry their own food with them. By stripping the farms of all the meat, grain and vegetables, Robert the Bruce stopped the British soldiers dead in their tracks. It was not hard to hide a herd of cattle in the Borders and their wives were quite happy when they arrived home with larder full of grains and vegetables.

Over the centuries, different branches of the Kerr family spread out across the Borders. Seldom educated, the spelling of the names depended on the scribe, generally an educated minister, to record the family name from what he heard when the information was verbally given to him. As a result, the spelling of the name KERR also became KER, CARR, and CAR depending on who wrote it out. While I am descended from a KERR who arrived in Montreal with his family in 1822 from the area of Lilliesleaf in Roxborough, Scotland, I am also descended from a CAR whose name evolved into CARSWELL, my surname, since my CARs lived closest to the well, and were identified that was to distinguish them from other CARs living in the same area. The WELL part comes from its original use to identify the place at the water source where water was drawn from a lake, brook river, or a stream. My CARs lived closest to that well. In saying so verbally it was how others identified them as being different from other CARs in the area.

Over time, everyone ended up with some sort of surname as the populations of the world grew and expanded. Within the group of some 52 individuals with whom I share a genetic connection, names that have turned up include, descendants of people known by their nicknames…for example, among them is the name CARTY whose son was recorded as McCarty, the “Mc” being a way of saying “son of” Carty. Other variations include McCarthy. Another variation of translating a verbal name to written name came up with McInerery. The closest I can come to guessing what that originated as was the verbal translation of McHenry. All these surname variations appear as my genetic matches.

In the early 1600s, the whole issue of Border Reivers and how they lived came to a sudden end when the King of Scotland became the King of England since he was next in line to the English Throne. As a result, an order was given to the raiders in Borders to cease and desist in 1607. Those that did not would be hunted down and hung. I suspect that one of the Border Reivers, trying to find protection after he would not cease his old habits, ended up escaping to Ireland where he became involved with the local population and eventually accepted the Irish Catholic Church as his own. His descendants, no longer border reivers, lived numerous generations over several centuries in Ireland until one of them immigrated to New York City.

It was in New York City that a young Irish Catholic lad named Henry McCarty was born. His name likely originated from his ancestor known as Carty to his friends and he was descended from his son who added the Mc to create the McCarty, the surname that would stick from then on, once recorded in writing.

In review of the 52 names that appear on my genealogical record with the same haplogroup as mine, I found the name CARswell and McCARty appearing several times. It told me that the common spelling with CAR was the factor that identified that branch of the family. It also told me that the young lad born in New York City was likely a distant relative as we both have the same genetic roots.

Henry McCarty moved around a lot during his early youth as his family moved south. He was orphaned at the age of 15, then arrested for stealing food, at the age of 16, in late 1875. Ten days later, he robbed a Chinese laundry and was again arrested, but escaped shortly afterward. He fled from New Mexico Territory into neighbouring Arizona Territory thereby making him both an outlaw and a federal fugitive. In 1877, McCarty began to refer to himself as "William H. Bonney". After murdering a blacksmith during an altercation in August 1877, McCarty became a wanted man in Arizona and returned to New Mexico, where he joined a group of cattle rustlers. He became well-known in the region when he joined the Regulators and took part in the Lincoln County war of 1878. McCarty and two other Regulators were later charged with killing three men, including Lincoln County Sheriff William J. Brady and one of his deputies.

McCarty's notoriety grew in December 1880 when the Las Vegas Gazette, and The Sun newspaper in New York City carried stories about his crimes. Sheriff Pat Garrett captured McCarty later that month. In April 1881, McCarty was tried for Brady's murder, convicted and he was sentenced to hang in May of that year. He escaped from jail on April 28, killing two sheriff's deputies in the process and evading capture for more than two months.

Sheriff Pat Garrett caught up with him and finally shot and killed McCarty at Fort Sumner on July 14, 1881. McCarty was only 21 years old when he died. Wikipedia has excellent pages on all of these individuals and well worth a read if you are interested.

I always knew about the notorious BILLY the KID but to find out that we both share common genetic roots that go back to the original KERR family is quite an astonishment to me.