Hello all:
There are not capital letters large enough nor grimacing smileys unhappy enough (I need ten crying smileys dripping streams of tears from both eyes) for me to talk about the mystery of my Scottish great-grandfather Robert Hendry.
He apparently never existed in Scotland, though the records he left in the U.S. say that he was born there--someplace--in October 1856 and lived there 25 years. Scotlandspeople never heard of him. FamilySearch.org never heard of him.
Rather he materialized in Massachusetts one day in 1882, married a woman from Glasgow a month after he arrived (she had traveled to the U.S a year earlier, accompanied by a Mary or Margaret Hendry--how's that for coincidence), brought five daughters and one son into the world, appeared in three U.S. censuses, worked an entire career for the same textile mill, moved 22 times in 15 years in a city that is thirty-six square miles in area--always one step ahead of me.
Oh yeah, his parents (as attested by two different sources) were Robert Hendry and Agnes Patterson. Scotlandspeople never heard of them either. Ditto with FamilySearch.org.
I still am offering a free meal in New York City (as much as you can eat at one sitting and carry out of the restaurant in your backpack or purse, but air fare is UNincluded; you have to fly yourself over, in other words) to anyone who provides me with incontrovertible evidence of my great-grandfather's existence.
The worst thing is that I think I have a picture of him taken at his place of employment in 1913. He is posed with crowd of co-workers. I have no proof that it's him, but it's his department and his face just jumped out at me. he looks like his granddaughters (my mother and her sisters) and one of my cousins.
That's my little mystery. Every so often, as when Liverpool Annie, sends me a link to topics like this, I find myself thinking about him.
Did I mention that his obituary from 1916 names a brother David Hendry still alive in Scotland. Well, what are you waiting for? Go find him for me......please.
Did I mention that I've been through this twice on the Scotland section fo Rootschat? That's still no reason for you not to find him.
Regards,
John
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