Our Adventure In Search of Henry Barkley of Rowan County, North Carolina

Our Adventure In Search of Henry (Hendry) Barkley 

of Rowan County, North Carolina

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 14 Theme: Brick Wall

Generation 11
My 6th Great Grandfather

Rigsby, Kienlen, Aden, Thompson, Cowan Barkley

Henry Barkley has been a puzzling subject. Most online family trees show Henry as the son of Robert Barkley and Margaret Kerr. Others think his parents were Robert Bartley and a woman named Leah. Robert W. Ramsey, in his book Carolina Cradle, cites a source claiming Henry was from Pennsylvania, but we have been unable to locate the original record he had found.

Some researchers connect Henry Barkley to the Barclay family near Stonehaven, Scotland through the Robert married to Margaret. There is no proof. He was called Hendry in his will, which is the Scottish form of Henry. Does this mean he was Scottish, or was the person writing the will Scottish? I don't know. He was certainly living in the samelocation as other Scots and Scots-Irish. Also, he was Presbyterian.
I also have no proof that he's not related to the famous Barclay family of Stonehaven. Maybe he wasn't an heir to the Ury lairdship, but he could have been a nephew or cousin of some sort.

In 2016 I went to Scotland with my daughter, Jennifer. We knew of the Barclay mausoleum near Aberdeen and planned a visit. You can guess how the reasoning behind this went. We didn't know if we were related to this family at all, but thought a visit was in order, just in case. It turned out to be quite and adventure.

It was a drizzly day, as usual for Scotland. We had some GPS coordinates for the mausoleum, and some very basic directions. The google map above shows the location, kind of in the middle of nowhere. When we got to a dirt road in the general area, I stopped at a house and asked for directions. The nice woman told us to go up the dirt road where we would find our destination at the top of a hill. She said it was a lovely place and that she visited there often with her dog.

Jennifer and I headed up the muddy road in our little rental car. There was some construction along the road, and the ruts left in the road were so deep that I was afraid the car would get stuck. So we parked and headed up on foot.It seemed like we walked forever, and it was a miserable walk. We were wet. We were muddy. I couldn't see a hill, and it looked like a ravine blocked our path. I lost hope and suggested we give up.

Jennifer was undaunted. She went on ahead so far that I lost sight of her. I was kind of mad because I had no idea where she was.  I called a couple times and she didn't answer. She was likely mad at me for giving up so easily. A bit later, I received a text message: "I found it." 
So I went on up the road through the mud.

There it was, at the top of a hill covered in grass much taller 
than it appears in this photo. 

The door to the mausoleum was securely locked with a little twig. We removed it and headed in to check it out.

There were two rooms with dirt floors. Some grave markers were in the wall, and others on the ground. In one room was a large plaque outlining the history of the Barclay family from 1110 - 1610.

I don't know if I am related to this Barclay family, but this muddy little adventure is one of my favorite memories of Scotland. I also learned from my daughter to never give up. The answer is somewhere.

In hindsight, it was pretty amazing to be out on our own, 
 just exploring, even if these aren't our ancestors.

What I actually can prove of Henry Barkley's life follows: