Help locating Byerhills

[hdw]

I've been totting up all the downloaded Scotlandspeople certificates I have relating to the Erskines and it comes to 31. I have entries for Thomas and Lavinia in the 1841, 1851 and 1861 censuses. The 1851 one, for St. Andrews, is a total mess. It shows "William" Erskine and his wife's name looks like "Laurence", and there is also a 7-month old baby called Ellen who seems to appear nowhere else. But the names of the other children and their ages make clear that this is actually Thomas Erskine and Lavinia (Guthrie). Their son William Erskine married Isabella Walker in 1858.

Wm. Erskine and Isabella Walker's son George Erskine became a footman and then a coachman in Edinburgh. He married Annie Brown, and in the 1890s they lived in Linlithgow, where my wife and I lived for 7 years before moving into Edinburgh. And here's an intriguing fact (for me anyway) - at one time George Erskine was living in a big house in the New Town of Edinburgh as footman to a posh family and just two doors away lived retired draper Andrew Hogg and his wife Jemima (Stewart). Those Erskines are distantly related to me on my father's (Fife) side of the family; Jemima Hogg or Stewart was the half-sister of my 2 x great-grandfather James Stewart from Hawick, an ancestor far back on my mother's side.

Harry

[Jeffrey]

Hi Mark,
I have sent you a personal message re: Janet Gosman

Judy

[Mark Smith Australia]

Harry,

I noted in an earlier part of this thread, where you told the story of Catherine Tarvit, that you were a descendant of Catherine: -

"That's my only distant connection with the name of Gosman! Catherine Tarvit later married a David Gellatly in Perthshire and I'm descended from their daughter Ann."

After reviewing everything that Judy sent me and this thread it seems that we share Catherine Tarvit as a mutual ancestor.   Catherine would be my 5x great-grandmother.

Through the IGI (FamilySearch) I can see her marriage to David Gellatly  (1799, Inchture, Perth, Scotland - name listed Catherine Tervate) and baptism records for four of their children, but have not found out anything else about her.  I do struggle with using the IGI at times - I am sure that I see different results every time I search with the same parameters!   I did however see an entry for a burial of a Catherine Tarvit in March 1840 in Kilrenny, Fife.

Do you have any more information on Catherine that you would be willing to share?

Kind regards,

Mark

[hdw]

Hello Mark. On page 2 of this thread I posted about Catherine Tarvit's parents and grandparents. She died in 1846 aged 77. Catherine and David Gellatly lived along at the east end of George Street in Cellardyke, in Toft Terrace, if I've read the 1841 census correctly. Near the harbour, if you ever decide to visit Cellardyke!

Their son Peter Gellatly became a fisherman in Cellardyke and married a Grace Reid.

Another son, David Gellatly, became a merchant seaman and married a woman called Gay from Crail. At one time he was master of the steamer "Xantho" which plied between Anstruther and Leith. He taught navigation classes in the evening and I've read that on occasions when he couldn't take the class, his unmarried daughter would take it for him.

Catherine and David also had a daughter called Ann Rankine Gellatly. She married Cellardyke fisherman John Meldrum and they were my 2 x great-grandparents on my paternal grandmother's side.

Tarvit and its spelling variant Tarvet have always been common surnames in Cellardyke and thereabouts and are still found today.

Harry

[Mark Smith Australia]

Harry,
Thanks for that.   I do now remember reading that the other week but mustn't have taken it in.   There are too many names when you get back this far!

Using that information I could find Robert Tervit and Janet Hodge (and five children) and then Robert and Christian Pryde (even found their marriage, as well as 10 children).  I presume that Katherine Tervit, born 1769 in Kilrenny, and  Catherine Tarvit (Tarvett) are one and the same.

Just for completeness, do you know when Robert Tarvett and Janet Hodge were married?

Mark

[hdw]

I should say at the start that the local pronunciation of Tarvit/Tarvet is "Tervit", and the name is often spelt that way in older records. Also, Tervat, Tervate, whatever. These spellings can still be found today.

Robert Tarvit and Janet Hodge were married in 1763 or 1764. From the Kilrenny kirk-session records of November 18, 1764:-

"After prayer Robert Tervit being call'd compeard and being asked if he was guilty with his Wife Janet Hodge before marriage answered yes which the session considering they appoint him to appear before the Congregation this forenoon to be rebuked for the sin of antenuptial fornication, & to have his Child baptized in the Afternoon. He being called in, the same was intimate to him."

The child was a daughter called Margaret. I think Robert's wife is the same Janet Hodge who in 1760 had a child in fornication to Patrick Tervit, called Patrick. She obviously had a soft spot for the Tervits/Tarvits. I think Patrick was a cousin of Robert.

The Hodges, Tarvits, Gellatlys, Meldrums and other related families all lived close together at the east end of Cellardyke near the harbour, well into the 19th c. and beyond in some cases.

I further believe that Janet Hodge was the daughter of a Cellardyke couple called David Hodge and Janet Anstruther. I don't have dates handy.

I have 11 children for Robert Tarvit and Chr. Pryde and 6 children for Robert Tarvit and Janet Hodge.

Harry

[leeber59]

Hi Mark Smith

It seems we have some connection. Jessie Erskine and John Smith were also my ancestors. Where from there do you branch off from?

Cheers
Lee ( nee: Smith)

[Mark Smith Australia]

Hi Lee,

John Smith is my G-G-Grandfather and I am a descendant of his son Thomas Erskine Smith.

Are you are a descendant of John Smith's son William John Smith?   If so, then we may have been e-mailing each other back in 2009 when I was living in Tamworth, NSW.   If not, what is your connection to John Smith and Jessie Erskine?

Regards,

Mark

[leeber59]

Hi Mark

No my connection is through George Sydney Smith who was my great grandfather