I am dedicateing the family site to a very special person in my life.Wayne Pierce Little and his family.I started his family tree years ago on paper after he asked me to trace his family back as far as I could.I was the keeper of his tree.Now after his death on March 9 2011,I decided to put this family tree on Tribal Pages for other to see and enjoy.And in his memory.So he will live on in this work.
Wayne was a man who wore many hats in his life time.He was a Navy seal,where he was a Hard Hat Diver.during the Viet Nam War.In Viet Nam he was injured while he was inspecting the bottom of a ship.He had a limp and a metal plate from that accident.
He was a long haul truck Driver.A County Administrator for Sanders County Montana.He was as he claimed an ordained minister.He was a neon sign repairman.He could fly which he loved to do and owned a plane.He drove a senior bus out of Noxon Montan.
He had a ranch The Bear Paw in Noxon Montana.That Ranch was heaven on earth for him. If the time had been right for me i would have married him but sad to say it wasn't he was hurt and we lost touch for 11 years.When the time was right he had passed away.He was much to young to die he was only 63 years old.He survived Viet Nam but cancer took him away. The greatest pride he had in life was his Scotish roots.
Little
In the Anglo-Scottish Border Wars of 1296-1603, the Little's were one of the fighting clans of the West March, living close up to the border on the Scottish side. Constantly raiding and reiving, the borderers on both sides held in contempt all who went on foot. By the close of the 16th Century they had earned a reputation as the finest light cavalry in Europe.
The Littles for over three centuries shared, with Armstrongs and Beatties, the steep-sided dales immediately to the north and west of the present town of Langholm at the extreme east end of Dumfriesshire. Their successive chiefs, Little of that Ilk, Lairds of Meikledale, resided at the foot of the side of Meikledale Valley halfway up Ewesdale (beside the present A7 road from Langholm to Hawick).
The ancestry of Edward Little "of Meikle-dale", founder of the clan, can be traced back through Normandy and Norway to Ingiald Ill (ruler in 7th Century Gamla Upsulla). Edward was active in 1296- 1297 as a guerrilla fighter with William Wallace, the great Scottish patriot hero.
Wallace led the first phase of the Wars of Independence against the oppressive occupation of Scotland by Edward I of England. Many of those who supported Wallace most closely were kinsmen, not the least of whom was "Eduuard Litill, his sister sone so der" (his sister's son so dear)
In 1426, two years after his return from excile, James I, King of Scots, granted to "our beloved Simon Littill", chief of the clan, tenure of the lands of Meikledale, Kirkton, and Sorbie in Ewesdale. Simon thus became the first Laird of Meikledale.
The Clan Little of the Scottish West March supported the Stuart Kings of Scots through five reigns. On 26 July 1530, James V, fearful of the mounted strength of the Armstrongs and their supporters, came into Eskdale with a massive "hunting party". Tricking the leader of the Armstrongs and thirty- two "personis of the greitest of thaim namit Armstrangis, Ellotis, Littillis, Irvinis, with utheris" into a parley, he hanged them out of hand. The Eskdale clans, thrown into a conflict of loyalties, from then on until the end of the wars foresook patriotism for their imperative of survival and sided with the likely winner.
At the union of the crowns in 1603, King James VI of Scots left Scotland for London as King James I and VI of a United Kingdom. He was determined to put down the continuing lawlessness on both sides of the border. His wishes were carried through with sword, noose and torch until hardly a building stood in the whole of Eskdale and Liddesdale. Chiefs were hanged those who survived were later ordered to sell out.
Simon Little of that Ilk was chief of Clan Little at the end of the Border Wars. His son Thomas' succesor, David Little, was the last Laird of Meikledale. In 1672, David was the last chief to be officially recognized. Since David's time, the Littles have been one Scotland's many heidless (headless) clans.
The clan began to scatter in the 17th Century. Littles, and Lytles, with neighboring Beatties, Thomsons, Elliots, Armstrongs and Irvings fled from persecution, poverty and overcrowding to the Ulster plantations. Many moved later into neighboring English Cumberland, where today, as in Ulster, There are twice as many Littles as in their home county of Dumfreeshire. Many moved deeper into the heartland of the "auld enemy" now open to them for the first time. They crossed the oceans to North America, Australia and New Zealand, proud of their origins, but over the generations, losing contact with the descendants of those who stayed behind.
Many of the Littles, Lytles and Lyttles in Ulster re-immigrated as Scots-Irish back to Great Britain, or like hundreds of Littles from the borders, headed over seas.
At their most numerous of all in the United States, there are some 45,000 little families in the English speaking world. Some of these are English and some are Huguenot origin, but most (and especially those in and from Scotland, Ulster and England's northernmost counties) have deep roots in the old West march of the Scottish Border.