Alexander Davidson

[robang66]

My 3xgr-grandfather is Alexander Davidson.  He married Jean Ross on 2 July 1806 in Laggan, Inverness-shire.  Their several children were baptized in Lockerrack (sp?).  I am looking for help finding a record of his birth.  Don't know if he was born in that area.  I have searched ScotlandsPeople, and found that was rather expensive without any definite data to go by.  Any help or direction would be appreciated.  Robang66

[JMStrachan]

Unfortunately, the baptism records that have survived from the early 1800s are by no means complete, which means there were probably a lot of baptisms that took place that failed to be recorded. I have lots of Scottish ancestors born before 1855 for whom I can find no baptism, even though I've no reason to think they were not Church of Scotland.

Do you have Alexander's death certificate, assuming he survived beyond 1855? That will at least tell you who the informant said the parents were, which could help you pin down a likely baptism. If not, the Scottish naming pattern can often give clues as to the likely names of someone's parents.

[robang66]

Thanks for your quick response.  No, I do not have his death record.  I know he was a shepherd and his widow died in Kingussie and Insh in 1859 so his dod was before 1859.   Could you please explain the naming pattern?  Robang

[JMStrachan]

FamilySearch has baptisms for children of Alexander Davidson and Jean Ross at Laggan, Inverness for:
William - 1806
John - 1809
Samuel - 1810
Margaret - 1812
Janet - 1814

The Scottish naming pattern is the tradition of naming children in a set order after ancestors: eldest son named for paternal grandfather, eldest daughter for maternal grandmother, second son for maternal grandfather, second daughter for paternal grandmother. So if the children baptised at Laggan are the right ones, it's likely that Alexander's parents were William and Janet and wife Jean's parents were John and Margaret.

Although the naming pattern was very commonly in use not everyone stuck to it exactly all the time. There is an Alexander Davidson born 1784 at Kingussie and Insch to William Davidson and Margaret Cattanach, which may be worth following up.

Have you found Alexander and/or his wife Jean in the census? Do you know whether Alexander died before or after 1855? If after there should be a death certificate for him on ScotlandsPeople, but if before then there most likely isn't even a surviving burial entry in the OPR, unfortunately.

[robang66]

I do have all of the childrens' baptisms.  Thanks for the naming pattern.  Interesting!  I was in the process of checking census records.  I was looking for Laggan as well as Kingussie and Insh, but nothing so far.  Can't say if he died before or after 1855.  I know Jean died in 1859 and she is listed as the widow of Alexander, a shepherd.  I will go back onto ScotlandsPeople and check from 1855 to 1858 - it's a possibility.  Thanks for all your help.   Robang

[Forfarian]

My 3xgr-grandfather is Alexander Davidson.  He married Jean Ross on 2 July 1806 in Laggan, Inverness-shire.  Their several children were baptized in Lockerrack (sp?).  I am looking for help finding a record of his birth.  Don't know if he was born in that area.  I have searched ScotlandsPeople, and found that was rather expensive without any definite data to go by.  Any help or direction would be appreciated. 

I don't know where you came across Lockerrack, but I think you can be fairly certain that there is no place of that name. There is a Loch Ericht, and it is possible that Lockerrack is a misspelling or misreading of that, although Loch Ericht is not in the parish of Laggan. (There is also a Loch Errochty, but it is in a different parish in a different county, and in any case did not exist in 1806 because it was only created by building a dam in the 20th century.)

Or Locherrack could be somewhere around the Corrieyairack Pass. The old map at http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=57.04462&lon=-4.57104&layers=B000000000F shows Leachdan Chorrach, which I suppose could have been misheard by a non-Gaelic-speaker and written down as Lockerrack.

You can read about Laggan and other parishes at http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/sas/sas.asp?action=public&passback=

I see from http://www.freecen.org.uk/cgi/search.pl that there is a Jane Davidson, age given as 65, in Insh, parish of Kingussie and Insh, in the household of Alexander and Janet McPherson. This looks like the family of Alexander MacPherson and Janet Davidson: Janet, 1831; Jane, 1833; Malcolm, 1836; Ann, 1838. (Isabel, born 1828, is not with her family. She may have died young.) So it looks as if the widowed Jean/Jane is living with her daughter and son-in-law.

In which case I think you will struggle to find a death record for Alexander, which will make it almost impossible to be sure who his parents were, unless the children's baptisms give any clues. Do they record the witnesses' names, and if so do they look like family members? Where did they reside?

You said that you have Jean/Jane's death certificate. Who were her parents? How old does the certificate say she was?