John Fairbairn (m. Bessie fflint)

     Mentioned in the Session minutes: The session resolve to examine witnesses in this affair and for that end order their beadle to summoned John Fairbairn, miller, and his wife Bessie Flint, Bessie Hog, their woman, John Lyal, John Dawson and James Wilson to the session this day eight days.
(From Book: 2.---Baptisms, Marriages, and Discipline in the parish of Melrose since November 1723, att which time Mr. Gavin Eliot was admitted School-master and Session-clerk.⁵
     John Fairbairn is likely to be the family patriarch for the families of Archibald? Fairbairn, Robert Fairbairn, Archibald Fairbairn, Archibald Fairbairn, William Fairbairn (m. WANLESS), John or David Fairbairn and William Fairbairn.
The Archibald with the ? after his name has to have existed, as the Fairbairn Surname DNA project provided a DNA match between a descendant of Archibald Fairbairn and Alison Crosser, likely first son Archibald born Whitsome, Berwickshire, and a descendant of Archibald and Mary Grierson/Giessen's, son George, baptised Bowden, Roxburghshire. These two families are contemporaries in time and fairly close by place.
The name Archibald? is assigned as father of the Archibald who married Alison Crosser from my assumption that the 1783 baptism of an Archibald to an Archibald, hynd of Whitsome Vaults, is their likely eldest child.
Prompted by this unexpected success I researched the other Archibald and have now convinced myself that his father was Robert, and grandfather John (marr. Bessie fflint), this all being from both naming patterns of the children, and the baptisms being in the right area and timeframe as there are no convenient wills left around for us to find. The extended family also end up in all the right places (Smailholm and Kelso). There's even an Archibald as a witness to one of the baptisms, and a Thomas Anderson.

Statistics on the Family Tree DNA site show that at a 36 out of 37 marker match ( exact matches at the 12 and 25 tests) there is a 90% probability that the common ancestor was no more than 8 generations ago, and 95% that it was no more than 10.
My calcs are that a grandfather to the two known to exist Archibalds would cover 8 generations in total, so this seemed good enough reason to join the families up in this way, it may however be a generation, or two, further back.

An additional line joined this extended Fairbairn family with an unexpected match between these Archibalds and a descendant of William Fairbairn and Jean Wanless, who had emigrated to Quebec. This 67/67 match between a descendant of the Archibald who married Mary Grierson, and a descendant of William Fairbairn and Jean Wanless. and the 64/67 match between the Crosser line and these two lines has led me to join up the families as per the linked charts.
You can read about this research journey on my Fairbairns page.^6,3,7,8