Abram Yeudall junior's father was entered on his death certificate as Abram Yeudall, a soldier, (deceased).

On the OPR entry for the baptism in 1780 of Abram junior, the name was rendered 'Eudal'. (Although, inconsistently, the Y was retained in the same entry for the name of the child.) Abram senior had been designated as a soldier on that occasion too.

A record of Abram Yeudall's military service appears on the musters of 'His Majesty's 7th Regiment of Dragoons Commanded by Lieutn General Sir Henry Clinton' (Public Record Office WO12/757 PFN/1336).

The term 'dragoon', incidentally, is defined by The Concise Oxford Dictiornary as follows:

'Cavalryman (orig. mounted infantryman armed with carbine)'

Abram Yeudall enlisted in the regiment on the 12th of February 1779. It might therefore be taken that his enlistment, whether voluntary or otherwise, was due to the pressure exerted on the regular army by the American War of Independence, which was in progress at that time. A muster was taken at Swinham on the 1st of March 1779, which probably indicates that this was Abram's place of enlistment. The only instance of Swinham as a place name that can presently be located is Swinham Wood, near Birdsall, North Yorkshire. The hamlet of Birdsall lies a distance to the north-east of York, towards North Grimston and the B1248.

It should be noticed that the muster dated the 27th of September 1779, on which Abram's name first appears, was taken at Kilmarnock. In this connection he appears as 'Abraham Yewdall', but thereafter his forename was entered as Abram. It has not yet been discovered why a detachment of the regiment was deployed in Scotland at that time, but it must have been around then that Abram's indiscretion with Isabella Mitchell occurred.

For three consecutive musters signed on the 26th of May 1780, the 14th of July 1780 and the 10th of March 1781, the detachment was in Haddington. On the 29th of August 1781 and the 23rd of February 1782, it was in Darlington; 13th August 1782, Warminster; 10th February 1783, Chippenham; 14th August 1783, Newbury. On all of these occasions, Abram Yewdall was listed.

He was discharged at Chippenham, Newbury or some intermediate point on the 28th of June 1783, although there is evidence that he continued for a time as a casual.

It is significant that Abram was recalled as a soldier on his son's death certificate. This would indicate one of two possibilities. Either he was a career soldier, and continued as such until he either died or retired, or else that Abram junior's knowledge of his father's life did not extend far beyond the circumstances of his own conception. The latter scenario is provisionally considered the more probable of the two. It may be that Abram never even knew that Isabella had borne his son. Notice that about six weeks prior to Abram junior's baptism, Abram had already moved on to Haddington.

It may be that Abram eventually returned to Ayrshire, where he married Isabella and had further children with her, but there does not seem to be a shred of evidence to support this as a solid conclusion.

The possibility has to be entertained that he was already married to someone else. Notice in particular that an illiterate weaver named Abraham Yewdall had married Martha Wood in Bradford Parish Church on the 4th of August 1776. This might be the same man, although the truth will probably never be known. Isaac, christened on the 18th of June 1777, and Susannah, on the 2nd of June 1779, were probably this couple's children, although only the father's name is indicated. The timing of the baptisms is highly significant. It may be that shortly before the birth of Susannah, Abraham enlisted in the army.

The various entries in which Abram's surname appears around this time indicate that there was a degree of confusion over its correct spelling. However, on the evidence of the military record, its correct and original form was Yewdall, a family name then already well established in Yorkshire, where there was a link with a well-documented branch of the family who were prominent in first the Quaker and later the Methodist movements. A connection with this family is apparently indicated by the religious character of Abram's Christian name.

A definite connection between Ayrshire and the Yewdalls of Yorkshire is provided by the birth of Sarah 'Yuedall' at Ballantrae on the 14th of October 1786, and baptised on the 17th. Her father was Sergeant Jeremiah Yewdall of the 12th Regiment of Foot, whose record is well established. That he may have been a relative of Abram appears a distinct possibility, but the precise nature of the relationship, if any, has yet to be established.

Notice also that an Abraham Yewdall had married Ann Dixon on the 31st of May 1752 at Hampswaite, North Yorkshire. These are likely candidates for the parents of Abram / Abraham the soldier, or of Abraham the weaver, who of course may have been one in the same man. The correspondence of names certainly indicates some kind of relationship. Hampswaite lies a short distance to the north-west of Harrowgate, and is not far from Fountains Abbey.

This position must however be qualified by observing that an Abraham Yewdall married Mary Wolton on the 19th of April 1760 at Pontefract. This of course is a source of further uncertainty, but at the same time it tends to reinforce Yorkshire as Abram / Abraham the dragoon's probable place of origin.

The Christian name Abram has been passed down the Yeudall line over several generations, and the name Abram Yeudall still lives on today. The correct form appears to be Abram, but there have been a number of occasions over the generations on which it has been recorded as Abraham. The Biblical significance of these two names is that the name of the Patriarch was originally Abram, but it was later modified by God to Abraham, at the time of the making of the covenant:

'Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.' (Genesis chapter 17, verse 5)

Since Abram or Abraham Yewdall, the soldier who apparently came to Ayrshire from Yorkshire, was the progenitor of the numerous Yeudall descendents in Scotland, and of their descendents beyond the seas in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Kenya, England, the United States and elsewhere, he has certainly lived up to the name of his Old Testament predecessor.

Abram Yewdall's great-great-great-granddaughter Grace Howie Yeudall of Galston, born 1893, is recalled by her granddaughter as having suggested that her Yeudall forebears had been Jewish. Grace's belief was probably prompted by Abram's Old Testament forename, taken together with his unusual surname, but a far better theory is that the line's origins lay in Yorkshire, and before that, back in the mists of time, in Cumberland.