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- The feudal barony of Congalton gave its name (or vice versa) to a very ancient family that subsisted in a part of Dirleton parish for twenty generations in the male line. The first on record, Robert de Congaltoun, witnessed a charter of Richard de Morville, Constable of Scotland, circa 1162. However, whether or not the family were then the lairds is called into question by the burial at North Berwick in May 1311 of Sir Robert de Lawedre (Lauder), where the inscription stated: "here lies the good Robert Lauedre the greate Laird of Congaltoun and The Bass Maii MCCCXI".
Sir John de Congaltoun of that Ilk appears to be in possession as laird just a few years later when he recorded a mortification dated December 13, 1314.
The elder branch of the family succeeded through heiresses to the estates of Hepburn of Keith, in Humbie parish, and Riccart of Riccarton, in Kincardineshire. Robert Hepburn Congalton of Keith and Congalton, the 18th generation of the family, sold Congalton to his brother who became Charles Congalton of that Ilk (died January 1742) and in 1702 had married Janet Lauder (1671– 1751), daughter of Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall. Their son William Congalton of that Ilk (died 27 October 1753), who married secondly Mary Bethune (died 1751), daughter of David Bethune, 17th of Balfour, had ten children of whom only three married.
The eldest son Charles Congalton (1736-1768), a Captain in the Royal Navy, in 1762 married Anne Elliot, daughter of Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2nd Baronet, of Minto and their two sons inherited their grandmother's estate of Balfour in Fife but did not marry (their sister Eleanor married Colonel John Drinkwater Bethune). A younger son Andrew Congalton (1749-1823), also a Captain in the Royal Navy, had a son Charles Congalton who died unmarried in 1827, so ending the male line.
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