Foinburg, Scotland?

[MonicaL]

The John Ross mentioned, confirmation was granted (re his will and estate) on 6 January 1914 in Inverness, his death the year before on 23 October 1913. His estate given as £126 0.0s 10d.

Monica

[Millmoor]

The valuation rolls have Mrs Janet Ross as tenant occupier at 7 Forbes Street in 1875 and at 105 St Leonard's Street in  1885.

William

[seemex]

The John Ross mentioned, confirmation was granted (re his will and estate) on 6 January 1914 in Inverness, his death the year before on 23 October 1913. His estate given as £126 0.0s 10d.

Monica

Ahh...ok, that makes sense.

[seemex]

Could the Ross you mention, father to John McDonald Ross, connect with this entry in Wills & Testaments on www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk:

John Ross 6/1/1914 - overseer of water works, Hong Kong, d. 24/10/1913 at Edinburgh, testate.
Inverness Sheriff Court SC29/44/56

However, dates/years don't compute perhaps? The executrix to the will is a Catherine Matheson or Ross (wife?) with an Inverness address.

Monica


There's a John Ross, native of Aberdeen, buried at Happy Valley in Hong Kong and says he died May 27 1913. It would make sense, but so does the one you have, and Inverness is where some other family are from. I can't see that will. I guess I need to join the website to be able to see.

[MonicaL]

Brian, with Scotlands People, it is free to register with and search. You have to buy credits to view images though.

Have you got any other info at this stage that may help with the searches at the point we are at?

Monica

[MonicaL]

1871:

Thomas Ross 47 writer b. Tain
Janet Ross 45
Wm Ross 20 Watch Maker (app)
Thomas Ross 17 Bk Binder (app)
John Ross 12
Donald Ross 5

Address: 7 Forbes St, Edinburgh St Cuthbert's

Monica

PS: In Scotland, the occupation 'writer' in this context (from what we had before) means solicitor.


Then there's this one! The watchmaker sure fits. All the names fit, but so many different families? Common names I suppose, which also creates a problem. Maybe I need t start looking at passenger lists again although I don't know what exists for outbound to Asia. I have lists where I've seen a Donald Ross returning to UK from Asia

Brian, going back to the first posts. From William's grave inscription you had his birth date as 5 June 1850. Fab3bird found and posted details from the Old Parish Register entries on Scotlands People for a birth on this date, for a William Ross to parents Thomas Ross and Janet Russell. This is the couple and their children that we have all expanded on on this thread. Williams siblings, John and Donald are married and still working as a bookbinder and gunmaker in 1901. Thomas I think may have remarried by 1901.

All of this would be fairly straightforward to verify with documents on SP. If you, I would likely start with the Will that William mentioned earlier, for Thomas Ross in 1888, to begin to confirm these details.

Monica

[seemex]

Sorry this is long but I'm trying to wrap my head around all this, so here's my take:

My dilemma is tracing the Ross that adopted Frederick White Thomson in Hong Kong. Fred was the youngest born to William Mitchell Thomson and his wife Harriet in Hong Kong. Fred Thomson was born in 1896.
Both of his parents died about 1901 and his sisters were probably not in a position to care for him so the responsibility was taken by a ROSS family of Hong Kong. Fred became FRED WHITE THOMSON ROSS.
The ROSS father is said to have been an engineer with the Hong Kong Waterworks and Sanitation Dept.
The THOMSON family and the ROSS family must have known each other well and everyone was in touch with each other on a day to day basis, but Fred lived with the ROSS family in Hong Kong.
The ROSS family also had a son, JOHN MCDONALD ROSS who lists his date of birth as Dec 1, 1890 in TAIN, SCOTLAND.  He emigrated to the USA in 1914 from Hong Kong, where he married one of the THOMSON girls (Fred’s sister Lillian) and raised his family in Alameda California. He died there in 1929.
In one family member’s Genealogy, this other son, JOHN MCDONALD ROSS, was also said to have been adopted. The live relatives of JOHN MCDONALD ROSS today, believe he was a natural son but we have no proof either way. They say he was from Tain, which could be true. They say he left Scotland at 16 and joined the English army for 6 years, then became an engineer. He married in San Francisco in 1914 to Fred’s sister. His father would have had to be in Hong Kong already to adopt Fred (between 1901 and 1913) if he died in 1913?

Fred eventually went to work at George Falconer’s Jewelry, which was managed by a WILLIAM ROSS.
Fred Thomson Ross later either owned or had a share in the Falconer's Jewelry store, which he sold to his sister Ellen’s sons when he retired.
Fred Thomson Ross retired to England and died in Eastbourne in 1975.

My conclusions are that WILLIAM ROSS of Falconers Jewelry was either Fred Thomson’s adoptive father or somehow related to him, maybe his brother?
This JOHN ROSS: (Could the Ross you mention, father to John McDonald Ross, connect with this entry in Wills & Testaments on www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
John Ross 6/1/1914 - overseer of water works, Hong Kong, d. 24/10/1913 at Edinburgh, testate.
Inverness Sheriff Court SC29/44/56)

I think that the above mentioned is the adoptive father. His other son JOHN MCDONALD ROSS might have followed in the engineering trade and Fred may have been introduced to Falconer’s through a relative of John Ross, as I mentioned, maybe a brother. Coincidence that one of the children with the name William Ross on the census (1871?) was an apprentice watchmaker.
The JOHN ROSS from HONG KONG WATERWORKS could have returned to UK before he passed away. It’s doubtful there was more than one John Ross with that position, in Hong Kong at that time, who died in UK. I think it’s the right John Ross.
Sorry to have taken so much of everyone's time. This is a real poser!
I appreciate the help as always
Brian
PS: SEEMEX came from my going to "See Mexico" back in '98 and I needed an e-mail address.

[Forfarian]

If you go to www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk, register and take a look at the birth indexes, you will find that there is a birth of a John McDoald Ross registered in Tain in 1890. You can view the original certificate at modest cost.

In the older Scottish records, the phrase 'natural child' means 'illegitimate child'. The usual term for a child born to a married couple is 'lawful(l) child' (as opposed to 'natural child') or 'biological child' (as opposed to 'adopted child').

You asked yesterday

Is there an on-line Scotland census that I can check?

. The answer is yes. You can view images of the original 1841 to 1911 censuses at modest cost at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk.

There is a variety of transcriptions and indexes online, of which the best is wwww.freecen.org.uk. Unfortunately FreeCEN only covers only a small proportion of the census so far.

www.familysearch.org has indexes to most of the Scottish census, which are free to use and handy for finding an individual. You can't easily use them to find out who else was in the same household, however.

Then there are numerous transcriptions and indexes on pay sites, all of which can be a help in locating the original so that you can view it on SP. The least reliable transcriptions are on Ancestry, which is notorious for its creative misspellings, but even they would find it difficult to mistranscribe a surname like Ross.

[MonicaL]

Hi Brian

Thank you for the background on this all. Makes a big difference always to know a little more as this helps to round off the picture as such and focus searches more effectively 

With the new details, you are very much searching I think for the background to John Ross, whose Will and death date we have and mentioned above. Lucky find really to have this on record in Scotland. Can't begin to think really how you could unravel his origins without the Scottish death..

We know from the index and the additional details that he died in Edinburgh in 1913 and that his widow is a Christina Matheson (her maiden name). With an Inverness address, likely they lived in Inverness at the time but John Ross died Edinburgh. And so infact it was like this....

I have found John Ross's death in Edinburgh in 1913, his usual residence in Inverness, matching the address we had from the confirmation of his will in early 1914. See below (very sad circumstance unfortunately):