The Ballardie Surname

It is proving difficult to find the meaning of this name and how it originated. Though it seems to be a Scottish origin name in 1891 there were only about 18 people (possibly 3 families) with this name in Scotland. These were mainly located in Lanarkshire, with only one person in Angus, though some were listed as born in Angus. There is one single person in the 1920 USA census which is Alfred W Ballardie born about 1882 in Scotland who arrived in the USA in 1907.

Oral history has it that the family originated in Italy and emigrated to Scotland via France. They left Italy after a daughter who was a nun died in mysterious circumstances and went to France, following the St Bartholomew's day massacre in France in 1572 some of the family moved to Scotland.

The first Ballardies that have been found in Scotland appear in the early 1600's around Dundee with James Ballardie who was a burgess of Dundee in 1611 and a Thomas Ballardie is mentioned in Fuird of Pitcur in 1622.

The Ballardie Family

Until recently this family proved very difficult to trace. David Ballardie who was born about 1825 near to Dundee (Campmuir Village, Kettins, Angus) in Scotland, moved to Liverpool in about 1850 and in 1851 married Ann Riley and moved to the USA where he apparantly died around 1853, though no record has yet been traced. Ann and her new baby daughter Davidina Isabella returned to England where she remarried Archibald McColl. The 1841 Scottish census has a possible entry for David living with an Alexander Balardie, who by his age is probably his grandfather as Davids father given on his marriage certificate is also David. If the 1841 entry is correct then David had a sister Margaret [Pending review, new data suggests Alexander was his Uncle and that his Grandfather was Thomas, this is as shown the the current tree, but is still subject to verification.].

There is an entry for David Ballardy in the 1850 New York Census, who is also a fireman and was born in Scotland, as was my ancestor, is it possible he returned to England to marry Ann? At the time of the census he was living in a boarding house. Or maybe as declared on the 1851 UK census he was a fireman on a steamer and just happened to be in New York at the time of the 1850 census.

There is a marriage on 15 June 1802 of David Ballardie and Upholsterer and Betty Caynock in Dundee City. Betty Caynock is possibly Elizabeth de Caynoth mentioned in another family tree, but there is no proof of that . If however this is the case then there is a substantial tree of descendants from this couple.

There is a Catharine Ballardie married John Herald 29 November 1807 in Kettins.

There is also an interesting article from 1821, in which the ship Abeona sank en route to South Africa. On this ship were both James McLukie and Robert Ballardie and were two of the few survivors of this disaster. It is not known exactly who these two were, though it suggests a link between the McLuckies and Ballardies going back to the early 1800's. It is said that James Parents died in the wreck, The two boys were repatriated to Scotland.

The Ballardie Tree

BALLARDIE TREE use this link to access the Ballardie part of the family tree.