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I think I might have gone as far as I can here, but maybe someone can give me a tiny clue.

We're trying to pin down an elusive Irish family link and I think this is my guy, but I can't prove anything.

His name is William Carey or Kerry, he must have been born in the late 1700s.

We know a fair bit about his son James Carey who was born in the Glasgow area around 1815 (evidence from census records, no birth certificate). We have a death certificate for James (1871) showing his parents as William Carey and Marion Wyllie. We know Marion died in the poorhouse in Glasgow in 1869 and was a widow by this time. We have traced James and his family in all the relevant census records but William and Marion don't seem to be anywhere near them.

William and Marion's sons James and John are in Kilmarnock by 1835, having spent time in Paisley. John was due to be married to a Jane Pattison but he was late to the wedding so James married Jane instead, and then spent 6 months in prison when the deception was found out.

We know from the letter the Minister wrote to the Sheriff about the wedding that "The Kerrys are natives of Ireland", but all of the census records show James as born in Glasgow. So it must have been his parent who was born in Ireland?

Are we now just so far back in the mists of time that this Minister's declaration is the closest we'll ever get to an Irish link? All of the people in question were brick makers or coal miners, nothing to make them stand out and appear in many records. Apart from the dodgy marriage obviously!

I've asked before for a bit of info about an ancestor and with your help have managed to get a generation further back but now I'm stuck. I'm trying the route of researching siblings or potential wider family members but I can't decide if I'm just picking out random names or if this would be a sensible link.


I'm reasearching a chap called Henry Travers.

He first appears aged 3 in Neilston living with a pauper nurse in the 1851 census. By 1861 he's in the poorhouse in Neilston. The spelling of his name varies depending on where I research, it changes from year to year, but it settles on Travers when he's an adult. He's Turvies or something in the 1851 census. Family stories tell us he was an orphan and was in a workhouse in the Neilston or Barrhead area so he is likely to be the right person.

Anyway, there are very few Travers/Trevis/Travis/Turvis type families around Neilston at that time.

There are 3 kids in the poorhouse in 1851 with the spelling Trevise, they are aged around 5, 7 and 10 at the age that my Henry is 3. It seems likely to me that these 3 could be siblings of Henry, would it be likely that the 3 older kids would go straight into the Poorhouse and the youngest would be with a carer in the local community then moves into the Poorhouse when he's a bit older? I don't know when they went into care, Henry could have been any age up to 3.

I don't know how to prove the link though. Of the three kids with the spelling Trevise I think I can trace 2 of their death certificates and they are also both using Travers as a spelling as adults. One of their death certificates gives me parents names but I have no way of proving they are the same family.

My Henry has blanks on his marriage ceritificate for parents names but does list a James Travers as his father on his death certificate, blank for the mother. This ties up with one of the potential siblings above. But every third man in Scotland was called James at the time so it feels a bit like pulling any old James Travers out of the pile to get a generation further back.

But the link between Henry and these 3 kids in the poorhouse seems pretty solid to me with the similar names and ages and the common parent name on death certificates (even though it's a common name), or am I just being naive?

I've asked the Mitchell and other local authorities, no-one has poor relief records going that far back so I think I'm stuck.

It's annoying, I think the Travers families most likely came from Ireland the generation before and my gran would love to prove this Irish link. She's 97 so I'm running out of time. I don't know how I would prove such a common name anyway. In my sentimental 21st century head it would be nice to know for sure that our Henry had brothers and sisters and wasn't completley alone but in reality he probably wouldn't have known them anyway. I'm too soft for all this family hardship!

Thanks for reading

Hello
I'm fairly new to family history, I've come across my first tricky person and I'm not sure what to do.

I had expected his name to be Henry Travers but I eventually found him and his wife and children under the name of Treavers.

He was married in 1871 in Fergushill, Kilwinning, to Janet McDonald. Parents showing as unknown. They appear as a growing family in census records after that time. His son was my great-grandfather and the family has been Travers from that point on.

In census records Henry gives his birth details as 1848 in Barrhead, Scotland, but I can't find a single record of him or any likely parents before his marriage.

Where do I look? Is he a dead end? Am I giving up too easily? I'd appreciate any tips on how to move forward from here, any clues on how and where to look.

Thank you