The christening of Isobel Cattanach, daughter of George Catanach and Helen Gordon, was recorded in the Kildrummy (Aberdeenshire) Parish Register, on 7^th April 1766.

April 7 Mr George Cattanach Drumnahive had a Daughter Bapt Called Isobel before witnefses Mr Weims and Capt Gordon both in Gairthly parish

It is doubtless significant that the the child’s aunt, Mary Gordon, was the wife of Patrick (otherwise Peter) Wemyss.

This Isobel is evidently the future grandmother of architect William Leiper, thus establishing the link to his great-great-grandfather, Charles, VI of Terpersie, and thence to the Gordon dynasty.

Isobel, married to William Mellis, manufacturer in Huntly, was bequeathed the sum of £20 in the 1805 Last Will and Testament of her maternal aunt, Margaret Lindsay MS Gordon, who died in January of the following year. This is the last known reference to her while still in life. It is unlikely that Isobel ever received her money, since it was expressly postponed, pending the death of the longer liver of her parents, the interest to be paid to them or their survivor in the interim period.

Isobel appears to have died young. In a letter from Harry Stuart, to Isobel’s sister, Elizabeth Catanach, dated 15^th August 1823, by which time Elizabeth was living in or at least close to the Mellis household, the lack of specific reference to Isobel implies that she was no longer living.

Harry Stuart to Elizabeth Catanach, 15 August 1823

See also House of Gordon, Volume II, edited by John Malcolm Bulloch, (1886, digitized by the Internet Archive 2013), p. 351.