Jun 30th, 2009

Tell me it’s not true

Today I’m in that least enviable of positions for a family historian – I suspect that I’ve been following the wrong family and that great-great-great-grandfather Cowan was somebody else.  [Silent Scream]

His parents lost several of their children and later children were given the same name.  So there’s two Marys, two Thomases and, crucially for me, two Williams. The second William only came to light yesterday (born in 1778) and wouldn’t have been a problem except he was born two years after my William.  That would indicate that the first child called William died in infancy and the next boy child took the name.  Unfortunately, my William is the first child and I have records of him living until 1852. [Sigh]

These Cowans lived in a Stirlingshire village called Airth from the 18th (more…)

Jun 26th, 2009

How is a village made?

I’ve been homing in on a village in Lanarkshire where four generations of my Somerville ancestors lived.

As it was a small village (around 500 people in the 1850s and possibly less than that in earlier centuries), it’s possible to get a fair overall view of who lived there and how the village families were inter-related.  I did a blanket search for Somerville BMDs 1538-1854 in the Old Parish Records on scotlandspeople and came to the conclusion that this family (or families) must have made up a majority of the population for nigh on two centuries. The records, by the way,  date back to a little before the Scottish Reformation and end as national registration takes over from the parish records.

As for women marrying (more…)

Jun 24th, 2009

I’ll just make a note of that

My digital record-keeping on my family history  is a bit slapdash. Notes are a prime example of this.

I’ve never used anything except a local note.  All my notes about a person are piled onto their individual record.  Noting a source in correct format depends on how logical I was feeling the day I made the note.  They range from Birth: found on 13 June 2009 at scotlandspeople online, GROS numbers incl (pat on the back there) to the cryptic J 09 online (worse than useless). I’ve also got what might be called personality notes such as Aunty Betty used to throw humbugs at her sister when they were 98 and 93 respectively.

Then there’s what I’ll grandly call research notes. Some of these are aide-memoires so that I don’t forget I’ve already tried a particular search (more…)

Jun 17th, 2009

Kirkwood Place

I couldn’t think at first how to write this story, because the individuals concerned aren’t my direct ancestors and yet they loom very large in my memories and affection.  Then I realised that a lot of the story revolves around one four-square house in a Scottish seaside town.

But first to the roots of it.

A blacksmith named William Selfridge of County Derry in Ireland had a son Henry who came to Scotland as a young man and married a Scottish girl, Margaret Elder. They lived in Hamilton and had nine children, the youngest of whom was Hannah Elder Selfridge, born in 1893.  This was my Great-Aunt Hannah. In 1911, she married Joseph Higgins.

It’s very likely that the Higgins line came originally (more…)

Jun 16th, 2009

Is in-law the best we can do?

While writing a blog post recently, I came to somebody whose relationship to me I couldn’t describe.  My genealogy software thankfully does this for me, so I looked her up. Wife of great-uncle. Isn’t that clumsy? And it also feels pretty impersonal: ‘after all, she was only the wife of my great-uncle‘.  It set me thinking.  Why don’t we have a word for relatives who come into our families by marriage?

We call them in-laws which is a practical enough legal term but there’s little affection in it.  I mean, how many mother-in-law jokes d’you know?  The French, unusually for such a pragmatic people, call the mother of your partner belle mere – hard to make jokes about her if she’s your ‘lovely mother’.   The term in-law doesn’t even extend that far. Brother, sister, mother, father.  We don’t say grandfather-in-law or niece-in-law.

It’s when we come to aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces,  that things really start to come unstuck. (more…)

Jun 13th, 2009

The wee shop on Waverley Street

I never saw this picture of my dad’s mother, Martha, until about 10 years ago.  She died, aged only 54,  thirteen years before I was born and I’m glad to say at the time of writing,  I’ve outlived her. She and a friend went to have their photograph taken in their best hats and furs in the early years of the 1920s. She wasn’t to know that before long, her world would collapse around her.

Martha Robertson Higgins (I’m fairly sure she would have been known as Matty, Matt or even Oor Matt) was born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, the middle child of 12 children.  Her father Joseph was an underground fireman down the pit and he and mother Martha both came from Lanarkshire. It’s possible, though, that the Higginses hailed originally from Ireland.

In 1912, she married a coal miner (more…)

Jun 12th, 2009

Chronology

NOTA BENE I’ve transferred over some posts from curlsdiva.com which are genealogical in nature. They were written before folkarethething.com existed.  Some of the facts have changed, as I’ve done more family history research, but I wanted to add them here anyway.  To find them, go to the bottom of the page then keep pressing Older Entries.

They are:

• the Indian connection
• I was here
• the pound in your sporran
• mors
• smile for the camera
  

Jun 11th, 2009

Can ye direct me tae Willie Law’s tannery?

On Ancestry the other day, I came across a page of Pigot’s Directory 1825-26 for Linlithgow which relates to some of my folk. Apart from name-spotting, it’s a fascinating social document. Linlithgow was a bustling town in the 1820s, although the leather and shoe industry that had brought prosperity to its denizens was well on the decline. The centre of the town was the High Street, off which were Vennels and Wynds. The kirk of St Michael’s, in whose kirkyard many of my ancestors lie, was situated just off  High Street and behind it, facing the Loch, was the ancient remains of Linlithgow Palace.

The town layout today isn’t so very different and, coincidentally, in The Vennel, one of the lanes snuggling behind the High Street, a cousin of mine has (more…)

Jun 9th, 2009

I’m back!

This site has been down for a while and I’m sorry if you’ve been trying to find it.  I’m very relieved to be back.

The Hamilton Advertiser did publish a follow up story on 4 June about the 4 Robert Bensons.  I’m still waiting for a ‘hard copy’ of the paper to arrive (it’s not available where I am) but here’s the online link to the story.

Sadly, the paper put a link to this blog in the article and by the time it appeared, the site was down so the link was dead.  I don’t know if that cost me any vital contacts.  But they also published my phone number and two people made contact that way, which was just marvellous.

I’ll write more about this later – just wanted to get the notification about the newspaper story up quickly.