Elliott family

I have ancestors with the surname Elliott. The earliest one I know of was Thomas Elliott, who married Margaret Johnston in 1756 in Berwick-upon-Tweed. Their daughter, Margaret, is my ancestor... but it looks as though they had two sons as well. David's branch of the family is in Aberdeenshire. Thomas (junior) was a plantation owner in Jamaica. He had a number of mulatto children with a woman named Judith Sherman, and (as the story goes) he left property to some of these sons when he returned to Scotland with his wife. Yes... it appears he was married and having children with his wife during the same period when he was having children with Judith. The scoundrel!

I'm curious as to whether these Elliotts are connected to the Border Reiver Elliots. That would certainly be an interesting bit of information!

Not Irish after all?

I bought a few pay-per-view credits and had a look at findmypast's armed forces birth indices... and I found my ancestor. James Carden (spelled Cardon in the index... close enough) was born in 1818 in Island Bridge (an area of Dublin, Ireland). I already knew he was born there around 1818 or 1819, but now at least I've got the exact year pinned down. Too bad if I want to find out more I have to spend a lot more money to do so. And I really wish these certificates were digitized so I could just view them; I don't really care if I have a paper copy in hand (in fact, I'd prefer not to).

This new information also points to the fact that James may not have been Irish at all. It looks like his father was probably a military man as well. Perhaps the family didn't even spend much time in Ireland. Unfortunately, the time period we're talking about is before 1841, so I can't even search the censuses to find out the whereabouts of this family.