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Topic: WHELLANS family - Morebattle (Read 2176 times)
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hdw
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 54
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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This is not actually about the WHELLANS family of Morebattle, but as it is about WHILLANS/WHELLANS in Roxburghshire, perhaps it will be of interest to somebody.
A new book I have recently read, "From Kelso to Kalamazoo. The Life and Times of George Taylor 1803-1891" mentions two sisters called Jane and Charlotte "Wheelance"/"Wheelence"/"Whillence"/"Whilleans". There are four mentions of the surname, and each time the author George Taylor spells it differently. His autobiographical memoir was edited and published from a handwritten MS in the possession of descendants, and the editors - from the European Ethnological Research Centre in the National Museums of Scotland - have normalised the spelling to Whellans in square brackets in the body of the text, and in the index.
In 1862 Kelso native George Taylor came back to the old country from the States, and - being a widower by then - proposed to Jane Whillans, whom he obviously knew of old. He tells us she "had a good situation as housekeeper at Grahamslaw", and I checked this out in the 1861 census of Eckford parish. Jane was then 35, and claimed to be a native of Jedburgh. A "good situation" indeed - her employer Charles Cunningham, a farmer with 750 acres and 21 farm-workers - was only 18 years old!
Taylor also mentions visiting Lilliesleaf, where Jean "Whilleans" ' youngest sister Charlotte was married with a family.
I have not been able to identify which family of WHILLANS/WHELLANS Jane and Charlotte sprang from.
Harry
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MonicaLesl
RootsChat Marquessate
Posts: 9166
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Hi Harry
The closest I can see for younger sister Charlotte in 1871 - but surname looks to be Turnbull from later birth regs for children in Lilliesleaf:
John Falla 34, Blacksmith (master Employing 1 Boy), b. Lilliesleaf
Charlotte Falla 33, b. Jedburgh
William Falla 6, b. England
Jane Falla 3, b. England
Address: Dunstan Hends House, Lilliesleaf
A hard family to find  Can't see anything earlier for Charlotte (or Jean for that matter with a birth year c. 1826 ) in Scotland./Roxb. under Whe/i*
Monica
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hdw
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 54
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Thanks, Monica. Finding any member of the WHILLANS family is not made easier by the fact that the IGI regularly returns WILLIAMS matches!
My only connection to the surname is that my great-grandmother Martha Stewart from Hawick had a sister called Jane Murray Stewart who married a George WHILLANS from Jedburgh. That family has been well researched forwards and backwards.
And my 3 x great-grandfather Hugh Stephenson - after siring the illegitimate son I'm descended from - married a Jemima WHILLANS who is invisible in the records until she dies in 1834 and is buried at Smailholm.
Harry
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brina
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 48
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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I looked up the 1851 Census to see where Jane Wheelans was working then and it is interesting to note that she is working in the minister's household in Crailing and low and behold who is visiting that day but James Cunningham and his mother. They are obviously related to the minister who was Adam Cunningham. This must be the connection and presumably she moved on to work for James at some point over the next 10 years.
Brina
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hdw
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 54
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Interesting! Thank you.
Harry
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brina
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 48
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Hi Harry,
I have ordered the book Kelso to Kalamazoo from the library so am looking forward to reading it. If I can figure out exactly which line Jane hails from I will let you know.
Best wishes,
Brina
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hdw
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 54
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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It's an interesting read, and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. At one point Taylor mentions calling on the Rev. Adam Cunningham at Crailing.
Harry
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Whillans
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 5
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Hello again to Brina & Monica.
I cannot add anything really significant to the info I provided in my three messages in Feb last. I have looked for sisters Charlotte (b~1837) and Jane (b~1825) in my files but I have to admit I cannot link them in, at least not at the moment. There are plenty of Jane's, none exactly the right age, and Charlotte's of any age are like hen's teeth.
I write here as I am in contact with three other genealogists, not involved in this discussion, who are actually descended from the Whellans family who originated in Morebattle Roxburghshire. Two live in Australia and one in England. The four of us have been busy combining our data over the past half year. If you are descended from the Whillans/Whellens/Wealleans/Whillas/Willans/etc lot, I invite you to join the Whillans Rootsweb List as well as this, via whillans-request@rootsweb.com using the single word subscribe - you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Once you're in, just send your messages to that List as well; it's a small List functioning now for nearly eleven years.
As far as I'm concerned, I want to link these two sisters in, so I am looking for that extra little clue that might enable it. I have searched the complete 1841 census for Roxburghshire via microfilm and the Jedburgh parish records (many years ago), and I didn't pick up a Charlotte, about 3yo, unlike Jane who would have been about 15yo. This leads me to the hypothesis that they were ex-Roxburghshire at that time, but I wonder where.
PS: Harry, many thanks for providing your extended data on & photos of the family of Stephenson (Hugh Eskew Stephenson married Jemima Whillans b~1798 at Smailholm).
PPS: Monica on 14 July stated "The closest I can see for younger sister Charlotte in 1871 - but surname looks to be Turnbull from later birth regs for children in Lilliesleaf". At first this seemed irrelevant, but on reflection I wondered as three of Jemima 's hyp siblings married Turnbulls, however in looking again at my data there is nothing obvious.
Cheers (or should it be consolations).
Frank Whillans from Melbourne.
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hdw
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 54
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Hello Frank. I'm very interested in what you say about Jemima Whillans being born in 1798 at Smailholm. You're ahead of me there. Can you supply further details? All I know about Jemima, thanks to Sonia Murray, is that she married Hugh Stephenson at some unknown time and place and that she died in 1834 and was buried at Smailholm.
For anyone wondering what my connection is, I am descended from the result of Hugh Stephenson's pre-marital fling with Alison Moffat of Melrose, i.e. their love-child Robert Stephenson (1805-63). So my interest in Jemima Whillans is purely academic.
I also however have Whillans relatives through the marriage of Jane Murray Stewart to George Whillans of Jedburgh. Jane's sister was my great-grandmother Martha Stewart, who married a grandson of Hugh Stephenson. So I was familiar with the surname Whillans, and I knew I had distant Whillans relatives in Canada, even before I discovered that my Hugh Stephenson had married a Whillans.
Harry
Harry
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Whillans
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 5
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Harry
My "Jemima Whillans b~1798" means that she was born about 1798, in this case it's not +/- 1 but quite a bit wider, say +/- 5; in other words, I made an estimate.
There was something odd in this family as it hasn't fallen into place readily for us.
It had been previously hypothesised that Jemima Whillans (W-H0 b1795-1800, husband Hugh Stephenson) and Walter Whillans (W-H1 b~1809, wife Catherine Stephenson b~1807) were possible siblings in Hawick. However, the story is far from neat.
Supposing Jemima's parents were:
Richard (hyp b15jun1783 Dent Yorkshire, c Sedbergh Yorkshire) and Katherine Stevenson (c Oct1779 Hawick, pa Walter Stevenson ma Janet Oliver), with Walter b03jan1809 Hawick known definitely to be their child, Richard & Katherine would have been 25yo & 29yo at Walter's birth which is fine. Now Jemima's first child was b~1814 (26yo in 1841), so if her parents were Richard & Katherine, then it is tentatively hyp that Richard as a ~15yo teenager sired Jemima illegitimately just before the turn of the century, if to Katherine then she would probably have been ~19yo.
George Willan (b~1760) & Martha Burton, evidenced from the death certificate of Richard (b1783), then Jemima would have been Walter's aunt, ie Richard’s younger sister. At this stage, while the dates seem more sensible, evidence is lacking.
Jemima made a point of not naming any of her chn after Richard & Katherine or George & Martha. Funny that. To date, she has beaten both Sonia, one of her descendants, and myself.
Frank Whillans.
PS: This thread has moved well away from Morebattle, but at least the Whillans is still prominent, mixed up with Stephenson. Harry, can you link the above Stephensons into the same family?
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hdw
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 54
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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Thanks for that explanation. The Stevensons you mention in Hawick don't seem to be related to my Stephensons, who have connections with Alwinton in Northumberland, and various farms in East Lothian. The brothers William, Joseph (father of Hugh) and Thomas Stephenson were placed in farms in East Lothian by their father William Stephenson, a successful "store-farmer" in Roxburghshire who merited an obituary in the "Kelso Mail" when he died in 1807, allegedly aged 77.
His first wife's name is unknown, but that marriage would have been back in Northumberland somewhere. William's sons Thomas and Joseph married their respective wives at Alwinton in Coquetdale, near Rothbury. William's 2nd wife, according to his will, was a Margaret Smith, but I can't find a record of the marriage.
Harry
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morageckford
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 6
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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As I'm directly involved in the publication of 'From Kelso to Kalamazoo', the life of George Taylor, I'm pleased to see that people are using it to trace their ancestors. He does use four different spellings of Whellans (he was in his eighties when he wrote the memoir!) but the editors took the decision to use the popular local name Whellans.
Poor Jane didn't have time to enjoy her life in America, she was married in Jan 1863 and died October that year. In his 60th year, George married, lost his son aged 19 in August (he drowned) and his wife and baby. Life was hard in those days.
George refers to her once as 'cousin' but I don't know how she was a cousin.
I'm not researching the family tree but I'm interested to see what peolpe like yourselves uncover!
Keep up the good work.
PS I have a photo of Grahamslaw where she worked but I think attaching it is beyond me!
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hdw
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 54
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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By coincidence, I don't have any family connection with the place called Grahamslaw, but I did have an ancestor in Kelso with that surname.
Harry
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MonicaLesl
RootsChat Marquessate
Posts: 9166
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Hi Morag
Welcome to RootsChat 
I'm curious, did Jane W and George marry in Scotland? I couldn't easily see a marriage for them.
Sad ending for her and George 
Monica
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morageckford
RootsChat Extra
Posts: 6
Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
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George , by then a widower for the second time, came baclk to Scotland on a visit at the end of 1862 and returned to America with Jane, whom he refers to as a cousin.He sailed back to America that winter and married her in Kalamazoo in January 1863. He was 60 in February and in August his 19 year old son was drowned in a lake, then Jane and the baby died.
His first wife died giving birth to her second baby, the first one died too.
His second wife had his 6 children and they all survived. She died of TB in 1860.
His third wife was Jane and his last wife also died before him.
So he outlived five of his children and four wives.
If you are interested in history, please read his memoirs 'From Kelso to Kalamazoo', it's an amazing collection of memories of a long gone way of life.
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