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Messages - mcalpinehastings

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Angus (Forfarshire) / Re: How do I find pre-1855 ancestors if they weren't church members?
« on: Friday 30 June 17 17:18 BST (UK)  »
I got the records from the Montrose Lunatic Asylum, but they didn't list the one piece of information I was looking for!  It clearly states that James Hastings is married but he doesn't name his wife on any forms.  That means one of three things:

1) He was lying about being married and didn't want to name his wife because he knew he didn't really have one.
2) He married Mary McAlpine at some point between 1875 (son Joseph was listed as "illegitimate" in 1875 and 1882 when he was admitted to the asylum.
3) He was married but not to Mary McAlpine and so didn't want to name his wife on the form.

I've asked the researcher at University of Dundee if there were any visitor logs.  James was in the asylum for five years (I shudder at the thought--the medical logs were chilling) before he died.  Don't you think it likely that someone came to see how he was faring? 

Under "nearest known relative of the patient and degree of the relationship", it says "not known".  On his death certificate it says "wife - and then two lines which says to me that there was a wife but he didn't put her name down.  I could understand on the death certificate that he wasn't lucid enough to answer but I would think he would have had the wherewithal to name his wife on the admission papers.

Anyway, I might never know.  I'll report back if I get another response from Dundee.

Sharon

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Angus (Forfarshire) / Re: Information on Death Register that Needs Explaining
« on: Wednesday 28 June 17 22:46 BST (UK)  »
That's what it was, thank you!

And there was a link at the top, I missed it.  The correction was a little horrifying, though--the record was corrected to show that there is a two day time gap where they are unable to pin down when she died, which means probably that she died and no one found her for a while???

Poor lady.

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Angus (Forfarshire) / Information on Death Register that Needs Explaining
« on: Wednesday 28 June 17 22:20 BST (UK)  »
I'm looking at the death register of an ancestor who died in 1962.  On the margin of the page it says, "Reg of Corr. Ents." Vol 12 Page 218 18th Dec 1962"

Any idea what that might refer to?  I Googled the exact phrase just to see what came up but I didn't find much.

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Angus (Forfarshire) / Re: How do I find pre-1855 ancestors if they weren't church members?
« on: Wednesday 28 June 17 18:17 BST (UK)  »
That was a fair hypothesis, Forfarian!!  But it doesn't look like it holds up.  I compared the signature from the birth of Charles William Gordon Hastings to the birth certificates of both George and Joseph M.  (Mary's children), and the George and Joseph M. look similar but pretty distinct from the Charles one.  Plus, Charles' father's occupation is "Seaman master, Merchant Service", which I have never seen listed on any documents for James Gow.  He's always listed consistently as a flax dresser.

Googling tabes dorsalis leads me to believe that James died from Syphilis (yuck).  But Mary lived for many more years; she died in 1919.  How did he die of syphilis in 1887 but she managed to live on for another 32 years?  She couldn't have had syphilis and lived that long I don't think.  How's she manage to avoid it?


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Angus (Forfarshire) / Re: How do I find pre-1855 ancestors if they weren't church members?
« on: Wednesday 28 June 17 17:16 BST (UK)  »
Sent inquiry to University of Dundee, they responded almost immediately.  What a pleasant shock!  It made me look again for death certificate and now that I knew to  look in Montrose I found it.

He definitely died at Sunnyside Lunatic Asylum, but the cause of death is really hard to read.  It might be Latin because it looks like "Take Dorafis".  As far as I tell that makes no sense in English or Latin.

I'm waiting to hear, I'll report back when I find more.

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Angus (Forfarshire) / Re: How do I find pre-1855 ancestors if they weren't church members?
« on: Tuesday 27 June 17 23:55 BST (UK)  »
So I found James' burial register in Montrose Jan 1887, under residence or designation it says, "Asylum"  Does that mean some kind of hospital or do they mean lunatic asylum?  Can't locate death certificate, and the burial records don't provide much information.

I so far have found birth records of two of their children that clearly say "illegitimate".  They were still all living together according to census of 1881, but by 1887 he was in Montrose by himself.  Mary and children continued in Arbroath, I found 1891 census she's listed as "Mary Hastings" (the only time I've seen that!) with the kids by herself.

Certainly would be interesting if he had another family somewhere, but I'm not picking up any clues that it's the case.

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Angus (Forfarshire) / Re: How do I find pre-1855 ancestors if they weren't church members?
« on: Tuesday 27 June 17 18:35 BST (UK)  »
Thank you, Forfarian, for your very thorough reply!  I searched for Cargill, which was a great idea, but didn't find a marriage between Jane/Jean Carwill/Carwell/Cargill/Ker Wells/whatever(!) and James McAlpine.  I obviously wouldn't have found a birth record for her if, as it says on the 1841 census records, she was born in Ireland.

I am still kind of caught up on the idea that Mary McAlpine and James Hastings never married, nor did she ever take his name on any records I found before or after his death.  I wish I could find more about her story--it's funny but it's usually the female ancestors that capture my imagination--I seem to have had a lot of very strong women in my family history, which bears out in my current ferocious female relatives.  :)

I think my next step, as suggested by Rosinish, is to start looking for graves.  I think I've pretty much exhausted the digital archives. 

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Angus (Forfarshire) / Re: How do I find pre-1855 ancestors if they weren't church members?
« on: Tuesday 27 June 17 04:27 BST (UK)  »
Thanks, Annie, for your help.

Last census record for James McAlpine found him living in Dundee with his family in 1841.  By 1851 the children were split up, and the parents not listed, leading me to believe that they both died between 1841 and 1851.  Certainly pre-1855, which means I have only church records to go by, and I couldn't find any records of death for James McAlpine.

I searched for the children and found the older boys all boarding separately in 1851 in St. Vigeans, but could only find marriage records for one of the boys, William (thanks to Annette!), and that doesn't help me with James' parents names.


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Angus (Forfarshire) / Re: How do I find pre-1855 ancestors if they weren't church members?
« on: Monday 26 June 17 23:29 BST (UK)  »
Follow up newbie question.  When you get to a point in your research where you have a name and a birth year but not much more besides, how can you decide if any of the available records belong to your guy or girl?

For example, I'd like to continue following the McAlpine line, and the oldest record I have is for a James McAlpine bc 1801, but all I know location-wise is that he was born in Scotland but not in Dundee, where he resided in 1841. 

I do find a boy named James McAlpine born in Glasgow in 1801 to James McAlpine and Janet Carsteven, but I have no way of knowing whether this is MY James McAlpine.

Advice?

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