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…)