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The BIRTH CERTIFICATE of Alexander John Duncan should give you a lot of information.

DO YOU HAVE THAT?   You say he was born in 1926, but in the Scotland’s People index the only Alexander John Duncan I can find born around then was born in   1927.

Keep working on it!  We’d all like to move this along!

Anne

Using the name William McHardy Duncan I’ve just searched Scotland’s People for a death (using only William Duncan),  anywhere in Scotland, between 1926 and 1960.  It returned 33 pages!  But it’s ‘lockdown’ so I was happy to take the time to scroll through all the pages!  Two deaths caught my eye.

1  Willian Hardy Duncan, died 1926, RD St Nicholas (not sure what area that is)

2  William Allardy Duncan, died 1928, RD Rubislaw ( which is in Aberdeen)

The name McHardy, when written at speed and possibly without care, could be misread as Allardy - I’ve just tried it!   I would think that in the 1920s registering a death would require a birth certificate to be produced and maybe a ‘best guess’ at the middle name badly written on the birth certificate was Allardy.    Just a thought!

Anne

Good morning, all. 
I think Rhododendron, reply 32 (I think) has got it!  American Shakespeare.
When I looked at it I could see    e r .... u m, and wondered where the Am was if the word was American. With so much underlining and smudging on the page, and so many extended spaces between parts of words, eg. shake  speare,   it was difficult  to see what was joined to what.  Looking immediately before the  ‘ er ....u m‘  there are a couple of letters I’d dismissed because they were scored out, or so I thought.   Looking again at them, and the ‘er....u m’  it is (?)  ‘Am  erican’.   
So I vote for Am erican Shake speare.     American Shakespeare.   Google it.
What do you think?


Anne

ps Good to be back! I’ve been watching but not involved for a few years!

Some beautiful restoration work there, folks!

Re the dating of this photo to 'circa 1900', I agree with Jim1 - I think it's quite a bit later than that.

I am definitely no expert, but I do have one or two photos of my grandmother, born 1877, when she was in her very early 20s, just before her marriage in 1900. It seemed to be a period of tight bodices, high necklines and long skirts - absolutely nothing like the looser, casual style of dress worn by the woman in this photo. And the way the child is dressed? When did little white sock and black t-bar shoes come into fashion for children?

Sorry, but to me 1900 seems quite a bit too early.

Anne

As he was born in Edinburgh I looked at the indexes of Scotlands People, which are free to search. 

Found a birth and a death for John Nicol Sandilands Reid, both events happening in Edinburgh.

Birth of John N Sandilands Reid
in 1914
in Morningside ( an area of Edinburgh on the south of the city)

Death of John Nicol S Reid
in 1971
aged 57
in Newington ( an area of Edinburgh, also on the south of the city)

For 6 credits ( about £1.50 ) you will be able to view online the original birth certificate. If you want the information contained on the death certificate you'll  have to buy it. Death Certs can only be viewed online if they occurred more than 50 years ago and 1971 is still a few years short.

SO you might want to buy some Scotlands People credits and get the birth certificate information.

Hope this is of some help.

Good luck with it.

Anne

ps I wrote all this a couple of hours ago in a reply which I thought I'd posted here BUT it disappeared and I've no idea where to!!!  I'll do my best to hit 'post' now!!