Author Topic: Girthon Churchyard & William Galloway  (Read 15967 times)

Offline Algall

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Re: Girthon Churchyard & William Galloway
« Reply #9 on: Saturday 16 January 10 11:54 GMT (UK) »
Further to above, I have Death extract for Mary McNish which reads as follows
Oct 8th 1843 At Gatehouse Mary McNish widow of the late Alexander Galloway farmer Lag & Culreoch age 68 (Girthon)

Offline Gadget

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Re: Girthon Churchyard & William Galloway
« Reply #10 on: Saturday 16 January 10 15:49 GMT (UK) »
Hi again

The Wigtownshire Free Press must have got the age wrong or it was wrongly informed as the dates correspond.

I'm not sure that there is enough evidence to link your William (b. Kirkcudbright 1796-1806)  with the William b. Girthon in 1799. Not all baptism records have survived and he might not have been baptised in the Church of Scotland, which are the most commonly available records.

You say:

Quote
I can trace my paternal line directly to William Galloway a weaver who died in Mouswald in 1870

The censuses just have him lodging with the Palmers so it's difficult to get any information about him. Do you have names of his children and a possible marriage? This might help get a better 'fix' on the family.

I've double/treble checked the Girthon and Old Girthon MIs but can't find this family.  Wherabouts in the parish was Culreoch?  It might be that the family had links to other parishes or they were buried in adjacent parishes.


Gadget
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Offline Algall

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Re: Girthon Churchyard & William Galloway
« Reply #11 on: Saturday 16 January 10 17:20 GMT (UK) »
Hi Gadget

I agree I am clutching at straws.

William the weaver in Mouswald was not married but had one son called John b.14/04/1843.
Extract from Mouswald OPR reads "John Galloway natural son of William Galloway and Janet McVitie in Mouswald village born 14th April 1843. John Broatch was sponsor both parents being under Church censure"
Janet McVitie was a married neighbour in Mouswald.
Janets husband seems to have left the area when John arrived, John was brought up by Janet. William lived nearby according to censuses.

I don't think there is any help here!
Cristian names don't follow the usual sequence but if William fell out with his father then that could explain this. Or possibly William had something to hide. Or maybe I am missing the obvious. Who knows?

As for Culreoch it is little more than a farm an a couple of cottages these days and is about 6 miles or so north of Gatehouse in the Fleet valley.

Algal


Offline KirstyG

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Re: Girthon Churchyard & William Galloway
« Reply #12 on: Saturday 16 January 10 19:34 GMT (UK) »
Looking at the census entries for 1851 I can't see any other candidates for William born 1799 beyond your suggestion.

Interestingly the 1841 FreeCen transcription has him as born Dumfries-shire (along with the rest of the Palmer household) though how accurate that is I don't know.

There is a submitted birth in 1803 Applegarth Dumfries on the IGI, but the 1851 does have a William born Applegarth, the age is only out by a few years so that is probably him.

Was William (b.1799) the first born son?

Kirsty
Galloway,   Landers,   Lindsay,  Gillespie,  Irvine
Erskine,   McAdam,  Hawthorn
Robertson,   Duncan,   Edmonstone,    Black
Anderson,  Nicholson,  Crombie,  MacDonald
Arch, Herbert, Charlesworth, Chapman


Offline kirkmichael

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Re: Girthon Churchyard & William Galloway
« Reply #13 on: Saturday 16 January 10 21:04 GMT (UK) »
Prior to 1843 - The Disruption - of which more later, anything up to 30% of birth records don't exist in the OPRs of the Established Church of Scotland due to ...

  (a) the family being a member of a secession or other church, e.g. Episcopalian
  (b) the record wasn't made
  (c) the record was made but that OPR volume hasn't survived

It shouldn't take that long to have a look at the entries for the parishes concerned here in the First and Second Statistical Accounts where it will be found that the CoS minister responding to the Statistical Account questionnaire lists all the congregations in his parish.

Be careful, tho', as it's well recorded that folk would travel a good distance in order to attend a church according with their views, possibly not in their parish of residence.

Both on the ScotlandsPeople site - dig deep in the OPR Help!,  - and in various publications the gaps in OPR records are listed in quite some detail.

Given all this, for all but the most uncommon names it's far from uncommon to find that there are various possible matches, and other evidence needs to be sought to prove that one of these is a true match. 

It's one of those situations where it can be impossible to prove that there isn't a missing record that is the true match.

However attractive a possible record might be, without other evidence, it can quite frustrating frequently be the case that the hoped for link can never be proven.

There are several techniques for getting round this.  One is the potentially time consuming concept of doing a one surname search in a number of parishes. 

For my own surname I did this in around 30 parishes in Angus and the County of Kincardine some years ago.  It took a total of 3 weeks at New Register House, spread out over a couple of months, along with considerable analysis time at home. 

It was fascinating to see how trees could be built from MIs, censuses and BMDs, at least to the extent that it could be shown that there was no connection to my tree.  But, as I noted, time consuming.

My own conclusion was that there was possible link from Montrose to Brechin but the only weak evidence I had was an exact naming pattern match with no such matches elswhere - but not every family stuck to these traditions; and, as always, I have no way of knowing what important records were missing.

Another method, much easier in these www days, is to trace siblings', even cousins' lines forward to modern day living relatives as the chances are good that someone out there has carried out relevant research and may just also have a key source such as a family bible, or family letters, or even other info such as occupations that make it less likely that a possible link is true.

Note also that, once you get into the mid-1850s plus/minus a couple of decades, the practice of using a family surname as a middle name, most often starting with the mother's maiden name, became much more widespread, and, for modern genealogists, incredibly useful  ;), not least in the statutory death indexes.


In small county parishes that 30% might be lower, but it all depends on the number of secession congregations.  I'm no expert in the area concerned, but do know that in other Borders parishes to the East the Episcopalians were strong; but go look in the Statistical Accounts!

In large city parishes the number of 'missing' births can be a high as 60%, - this is based on surveys at the time.

From 1843 to 1854, after the secession forming the Free Kirk, the figure of records not to be found in the CoS OPRs can be as high as 60% even in rural parishes - again check the Third Statistical Account and other sources to see how many Free Kirk congregations there were in your parish[es] of interest.


It's also important to realise that the quality of info can vary widely, - the monumental mason misread the info given to him; the newspaper reporter is in a tearing hurry to meet a deadline, and, not least, the informant for a 1855+ death record was greatly emotionally upset so got something completely wrong; and there's also plenty of stories of wild errors in birth and marriage registrations, never mind the same factors for censuses where the 'overseas' factor needs to be added in , i.e. many census indexes are based on data input of less than ideally trained staff in companies based in the Indian sub-continent, Sri Lanka, The Phillippines, mainland China, Taiwan, etc., etc.

As regards the GROS census indexes the training given to these overseas staff is excellent, and the quality control first class, so the the transcription error rate is as low as 2 or 3%, but the same, unfortunately, cannot be said for other indexes, including one very large company that I couldn't possibly name  :o ; but would comment that I still use their indexes since more fields in the census returns are indexed, and there are other search possibilities, e.g. given name only ......

Wullie

Offline kirkmichael

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Re: Girthon Churchyard & William Galloway
« Reply #14 on: Saturday 16 January 10 21:26 GMT (UK) »
duplicate post..........

Offline Algall

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Re: Girthon Churchyard & William Galloway
« Reply #15 on: Sunday 17 January 10 11:14 GMT (UK) »
Hi Kirsty
I have traced the life of William born in 1803 in Applegarth and he died in Lockmaben, so not the one I am lookig for.
William b. 1799 was the first born to Alexander and Mary. They had 5 children i think.
Algall

Offline Algall

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Re: Girthon Churchyard & William Galloway
« Reply #16 on: Sunday 17 January 10 11:16 GMT (UK) »
Hi Wullie
I hear what you are saying. I live in the Midlands of England and cannot easily access the records in Scotland.
Algall

Offline bob galloway

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Re: Girthon Churchyard & William Galloway
« Reply #17 on: Thursday 22 November 12 13:17 GMT (UK) »
In my trawling for finding the correct ancestor Alexander Galloway I came across this post.My particular dilemna is that I have two Alexanders in the frame and am trying to eliminate one of them.See details of this on my FH web site at https://sites.google.com/site/bobsgallowayfamilyhistory.

The Alexander on this posting is probably as follows:

GEORGE GALLOWAY was born Abt. 1747.  He married ELIZABETH MILWRATH June 15, 1767.  She was born Abt. 1747.
   
Children of GEORGE GALLOWAY and ELIZABETH MILWRATH were:

       JEAN GALLOWAY,    b. June 15, 1768, Auchenhay,Borque,Kircudbright.
        WILLIAM GALLOWAY, b. December 17, 1770, Auchenhay,Borque,Kircudbright; d. January 
                                                             12, 1837, Annan.
                   ALEXANDER GALLOWAY, b. July 8, 1772, Achenhay,Borque,Kircudbright; d. Bef.
                                                             1851.

Alexander Galloway and Mary McNish had six children :William b May4 1799,George b.June 5 1801,Alexander b. Aug 13,1804,Mary b. Jan 31,1807,Elizabeth b.Apr 15,1809 and Menzies b.Feb 24,1818.I cannot find a marriage date for the parents.
If this is the Alexander who married Mary McNish then one of my contenders might be eliminated from my ancestor tree.I would very much welcome any comments on this .Bob

Galloway family originating Ayrshire then Lochmaben Dumfrieshire but also in Dumfries,Saltcoats,Ayrshire.Other Dumfriesshire surnames of Richardson,Clarke,Carlyle McIlwraith.Laidlaw from Crawford.Robertson and Taylor ,Buchan originating Banff and Peterhead and Fraserburgh.Ayrshire names of Keegans,Goudie and Galt.