A history of a single kin group, expanding from an Anglo-Norman whose seal is on the Ragman Roll 1296, to 150-odd families of the mid-19th century - a different approach from most family histories written backwards from a present day single unit.
Novel aspects include:
. The concept of an "expanding historical torrent" and the importance of kinship in ensuring survival over the long-term.
. Local history (Roxburghshire and Berwickshire, East and Middle Marches) from the Earls of Douglas to the Age of Improvement as a camera obscura, giving a comprehensible slant to wider Scottish history over 600 years.
. Lairdship over time, changing lifestyle, nature of land holding, farming, occupations, tower houses, etc.
. Social metamorphosis and decline, fragmentation of laird class, younger sons, urban middle class merchants, professionals and artisans, as well as agricultural workers.
. Migration and the pressures which caused it, rural to urban, Scotland to northern England, and overseas.
. Sense of identity: what kinship and the name (under several spellings) and the transition from the old church to the new kirk conveyed in the context of Border locality; Scotland and Scottishness, then Britishness and the Empire to World War I.
