Foinburg, Scotland?

[seemex]

Does anyone know this place? Inscription on a grave in Hong Kong

23---/03/08-   WR / Sacred to the memory / of / William Ross / manager of G Falconer & Co / Hong Kong / born in Foinburg Scotland / 5th June 1850 / died 5th July 1898 / Until the day break and / the darkness fly away

Brian

[lanercost]

Does anyone know this place? Inscription on a grave in Hong Kong

23---/03/08-   WR / Sacred to the memory / of / William Ross / manager of G Falconer & Co / Hong Kong / born in Foinburg Scotland / 5th June 1850 / died 5th July 1898 / Until the day break and / the darkness fly away

Brian

I've found his baptism on ScotlandsPeople for you. It's from Edinburgh: "Thomas Ross, clerk, and Janet Russell, his spouse, had a lawful son born at No. 31 New Street, Canongate parish, on the fifth day of June, eighteen hundred and fifty, named William."

[djct59]

So it must be a misreading of Edinburgh

[lanercost]

So it must be a misreading of Edinburgh

Didn't even realise this after my post but so obvious now.

[seemex]

Edinburgh! Of course! I totally see that now....the missing bottom stroke from the "E" would leave it as "F", and the same missing upstroke on the "d" leaves an "o". Thanks so much for the extra info re baptism. I'd say this is who I'm looking for alright.
My next step is to find out how William Ross got to Falconer's in Hong Kong. I wonder if there was an original Falconer Watchmaker/Jeweller in Edinburgh/Glasgow? Maybe he apprenticed in Scotland and later went out to HK.
I have a family member who was adopted by a Ross Family in Hong Kong about 1901. The adopted son later worked for for Falconers too, so it makes sense that it's the correct Ross Family.
Thanks again
Brian

[djct59]

The story of the company is here - http://hongkongsfirst.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/watchmaker-turned-ship-owner.html.

It involves Scots immigrants seeking to make their fortune in the eastern colonies (arguably if they moved to a British ony they weren't immigrants, but you get the idea)

[seemex]

I just found that same website! Very interesting and it makes sense. I need to find out more about William Ross, who was born in Edinburgh and later managed Falconer's; when and why he went to Hong Kong? Was he married before he went? Did he have children? He adopted at least one son, Fred W Thomson-Ross, born 1897 so must have been just before he died. Another son John McDonald Ross, may also have been his own or maybe adopted too. Rumor was they were both adopted.
Lots of twists and turns with this search, as there is with most of them I suppose.
Is there an on-line Scotland census that I can check?
B

[seemex]

I notice there are some other Ross men in Hong Kong about that time. I wonder if William Ross had brothers who also went out there? I doubt he was an only child as most families were large so its possible that more than one of them went out to the Far East. Although my relative Fred Thomson-Ross was adopted by a Ross, and he later worked at/ as well had at least a share/if not ownership, in G Falconers Jewelers, he could have been the adopted son of another Ross brother, besides William and steered into that business through family affiliation.
His adopted brother John McDonald Ross followed a different career path entirely, in shipping and was an engineer on the SS Nile. It was said that HIS father ( a Ross ) was an engineer with the Sanitation dept in Hong Kong, same era.

[MonicaL]

With the parents' details provided for William by fab3bird above, I thought this might be the Ross family in Edinburgh in 1861:

Thomas Ross 37 Mercantile Cl Uaholstery & Furndure (as trascribed. Guessing mercantile clerk upholster and furniture) b. Tain, Ross-shire
Janet R Ross 34 b. Edinburgh
Marion Ross 12
Wm Ross 10
Thomas Ross 8
John Ross 2
Donald Ross 4 Months

Address: 31 Blair St, Edinburgh St Giles

Can't easily the births on Family Search  of the other children except for the two Donald births below. Likely the 4mth old died and the name was re-used, twice. The name must have been important to the family.

Donald 1863 https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FQF5-VYW
Donald 1865 https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FQF5-VYC

Thomas and Janet married in Edinburgh in 1847. Her father showing on the register as Robert Russell.

Monica