Sir Robert Douglas, 6th Baronet

Sir Robert Douglas of Glenbervie, 6th Baronet (1694 – 24 April 1770) was a notable genealogist responsible for one of the major works on Scottish families, The Baronage of Scotland.

Works

No substantive Scottish peerage had appeared since George Crawfurd's in 1716. In 1764, Douglas published the volume, The Peerage of Scotland; with a dedication to the Earl of Morton and a list of subscribers prefixed. In his preface Douglas stated that he had sent for corrections and additions a manuscript copy of each account of a peerage to the contemporary holder of it. There are references in the margin to the manuscript and other authorities.

In the preface to the peerage Douglas spoke of issuing a second part containing a baronage of Scotland, here using the word "baronage" in the limited sense of the Scottish gentry or lesser barons; Sir George Mackenzie had left materials for a work of that kind. In September 1767 he announced in the newspapers that the baronage was in the press; but before the publication of any part of it Douglas died. In 1798 appeared the first volume of his Baronage of Scotland, containing an Historical and Genealogical Account of the Gentry of that Kingdom, some of the concluding pages of which are by the editors, whose promise in their preface to issue a second volume was not fulfilled. The volume includes the baronets of Scotland.

In 1813, a second edition of Douglas's chief work was published as, The Peerage of Scotland, Second Edition, Revised and Corrected by John Philip Wood, Esq., with Engravings of the Arms of the Peers.