ily. The early sires proved brave in war, generally efficient in agricultural production, active in governmental and church affairs and progressive in educational efforts and industrial development.

But the Houston family was destined for a much wider role in national and world affairs. While the baronets continued bound to their lands in the native shire, their offspring and kin were well on the way as part of the world-shaking events in the great westward movement of which they were to be an influential part.

In Scotland, the great religious Reformation was rocking the nation. Thousands of Scots settled in Northern Ireland, and were welded into the Ulster Scots. Eventually the new breed of Scots migrated to America to become known as the Scotch-Irish, a people who helped fan the fires of revolution, turned the scales for victory In the war for independence, provided statesmen for establishing a new nation and frontiersmen to expand the borders westward across the continent.

The Houstons were deeply involved in this westward wave. Only a small part of their activities and a few individuals and families can be covered in the limited scope of this book. But an effort is made to reflect the part the Houstons and their compatriots played in the great epic. Some individuals and family groups will be given special consideration due to out.standing achievements—Others simply because they are typical of the many.

Attention first is given to the spread of the family through.out the Lowlands of Scotland itself. During the feudal years and the beginning of modern times, ambitious younger sons of the barons of Houstoun, not being heirs to lands and castles, entered other callings. Some chose military or marine service to follow the British flag to the corners of the earth. Others engaged in crafts and commerce. An honored list entered the ministry or became teachers. Some were in governmental service and a few entered the medical and legal professions.

As government became more complex and cities grew, some of the Houstons, including the barons themselves, filled civil offices and some engaged in politics. Quite a number of the barons or their brothers and sons served in the Scottish Parliament at Edinburgh before it was finally dissolved in favor of the British Parliament in London in 1707.

The first of these on record was a Houston, first name