The daughter is said in an 1887 report in the Pall Mall Gazette to have borne a strong physical likeness to Robert Burns's portraits when she was young and even retained a strong resemblance to her death, having similar contours of her face and the poet's dark, bright eyes.

[2] This daughter entered service at around the age of seven[4] and eventually married a Mr Armstrong who died many years before her.

[4] Helen Armstrong's mental faculties are also said to have additionally indicated her parentage, for "her conversational powers and her quickness of repartee were most amusing anmd attractive".

[2] In deeply religious times the placing in such a prominent position of the details of an unmarried mother and her daughter is highly unusual as is the provision of a lair and stone in such cases.

[6] Helen once saw Sir Walter Scott when he came into the kitchen at the Buccleuch Arms and spoke to the head cook.

It is clear however from her gravestone's inscription that a daughter, also Ellen or Helen, did exist and given that many illegitimate children were not recorded in parish registers at this time the connection with Burns remains possible but 'not proven'.