The mysteries of William Kemyss

Not all my research is aimed at my direct ancestors. It is sometimes interesting to see the family surrounding those said ancestors--siblings, relatives by marriage, witnesses of events, business partners, clients, employers, etc. It tells you a lot about the family in general, their place in society, people they may have known or known of.

My direct ancestress, Catharine Syme, had an elder sister, Christian, who married William Kemyss, Esquire. Bits and pieces I've tried to pick up about him are relatively vague. They seem to point to the fact that he is a Writer. I assume that means Writer to the Signet but assumptions, of course, are just assumptions after all.

Year by year, the internet and the digitization of old documentations adds to my hunt in ways I couldn't have imagined. I just found a digitized copy of a postal directory of 1819-20. This is from after the marriage of Christian and William and recently after the death of James Syme, father of Christian. It is prior to the early death of William.

Archive.org may prove to be more valuable but for now I find an address in my hunt for more details of the marriage of Christian and William Kemyss. William Kemyss, Writer, is shown as living on Pitt Street in Edinburgh at this time. If you look at Google Map of Pitt Street, it borders between northern Edinburgh and Leith.