In the spring of 1650, an individual recorded only as Finlayson became the subject of formal legal proceedings within the sphere of the Forfar presbytery. On March 21 of that year, the administrative apparatus of the Scottish witch trials—a system deeply entwined with both ecclesiastical oversight and secular judicature—was mobilised to address the case. While the surviving documentation is sparse, it indicates that the case was subject to the scrutiny of a minister whose career trajectory spanned both the Forfar and Fordoun presbyteries, a detail that reflects the complex jurisdictional intersections of the period.
The archival trail for Finlayson concludes with a specific entry in the judicial registers under the reference T/JO/1203. Although the broader circumstances of the accusation remain obscured by the passage of time, the existence of this trial record confirms her formal inclusion in the intense wave of prosecutions that characterized mid-seventeenth-century Scotland. Finlayson remains a representative figure of this volatile era, captured within the formal documentation of a legal process that sought to resolve matters of perceived spiritual and communal transgression through the mechanisms of the local court.