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Messages - Forfarian

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 ... 1679
1
Argyllshire / Re: Alexander Grierson
« on: Today at 09:01 »
Quote from: wyanga on Today at 00:34
I am sure that my tracking of the McKellar family is correct.
Yes, I agree.

It's the next steps back that are potentially more difficult to be sure about.

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I assume that in this case the Nancy= Anne
I keep reminding myself never to make assumptions :)

In every one of the baptisms of the family of Duncan Campbell, his wife's name is recorded as Agnes McKoel. There is not one single original record on Scotland's People naming a Nancy McKoel. So you don't need to account for Nancy=Agnes or for Nancy=Ann(e). You need to be sure why Agnes' daughter named a child (who was not her first daughter) Anne, but appears not to have named a daughter Agnes, which was the well documented given name of her mother.

Could they, for instance, have had an older daughter named Agnes whose baptism is not in the surviving records? I don't see a marriage record to see whether there was a gap between the marriage and the arrival of Duncan in 1798.

And why did Margaret Campbell not name one of her sons Neil after her brother?

On the other hand the presence of a Sophia among Agnes McKoel's daughters and another Sophia among her granddaughters is potentially a useful connection.







2
Scotland / Re: Where does the Steele family go after 1901?
« on: Yesterday at 17:08 »
Welcome to RootsChat :)

Unless you think your family is connected to the one already being discussed you don't need to attach it to an existing thread and wonder if it's still active. You could have started a new thread specific to your Steeles.

When and where was your great-grandfather born? Have to seen his birth certificate? What, if anything, does it tell you about Mary Steele?

3
Argyllshire / Re: Alexander Grierson
« on: Yesterday at 16:58 »
Thanks, Kay99.

wyanga, if this is correct, Margaret Campbell or McKellar cannot be the one baptised in Lochgoilhead in 1775, because Lochgoilhead is a separate parish from the parish of Dunoon and Kilmun. So don't hasten up that tree until you have some proper evidence that it's the right tree.

Just because there is only one candidate in the available records does not mean that they are the right one. There are many gaps in the records before the start of civil registration in 1855, and the further back you go, the more records, if they ever existed, have not survived.

I see that Duncan McKellar and Margaret Campbell had a large family; Catherine 1801, Hellen 1802; Anne 1804; Peter 1806; John 1808; Margaret 1810; James 1812; Archibald 1815; Mary 1816; Sophia 1819 and Donald 1822. No Agnes, as you would have expected if Margaret's mother's name was Agnes or Nancy; though it is true that the names Anne and Agnes are sometimes used interchangeably.

If I were you I would have a look at the baptisms to see if the names of witnesses are recorded, and if so, whether they contain any clues to the identities of the grandparents.


4
Argyllshire / Re: Alexander Grierson
« on: Yesterday at 12:26 »
Kay99

Does the original of the 1851 census say exactly where Margaret Campbell or McKellar was born? FindMyPast's transcription only says Argyll.

5
Argyllshire / Re: Alexander Grierson
« on: Yesterday at 12:06 »
Quote from: wyanga on Yesterday at 11:50
My thoughts on this are that there were Census collectors who wrote down what they thought they heard the individual say, speech and accent could very well have made Wigtown sound like Wigton.
At that date, I wouldn't give even a passing thought to spelling.

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But that doesn't alter the fact that it is not in Dumfrieshire. He was at that time an old man and maybe was confused in his thinking.
Possibly, or maybe it was an enumerator's error.

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in the 1861 Census, she had also reverted to her maiden name of McKellar
It's very common in the early censuses for a married or widowed woman to be recorded under her own maiden surname. This is because in Scots law a woman does not lose her maiden surname when she marries. It's for the same reason that you get the mother's maiden surname in the majority of baptism records, and in all post-1855 birth, marriage and death records. In legal documents a married woman is named as xxx yyy or zzz, xxx being her given name(s), yyy her maiden surname and zzz her husband's surname.


6
Perthshire / Re: George Moir House
« on: Yesterday at 10:26 »
Quote from: CaroleW on Yesterday at 08:11
Callander & Ben Ledi are in Stirling
They are in the area now (since 1975) administered by Stirling Council.

Historically they are in the County of Perth aka Perthshire. See https://maps.nls.uk/view/74400315 and https://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/parish/Perth/Callander

This https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/LB50395 is the Listed Building record for Bochastle Farm.

7
Argyllshire / Re: Alexander Grierson
« on: Yesterday at 10:19 »
Quote from: wyanga on Yesterday at 08:16
The naming of Wigton Dumpfries in the 1851 census creates a real problem and combined with the variation in the ages given it looks to me as if it will be impossible to follow this family any further back. We could never be sure just who his parents might be.
A couple of things.

First, I am pretty sure that we are all relying on transcriptions of that 1851 census. You should take a look at the original, just to be sure that it does actually say Wigton and Dumfries. Both enumerators and transcribers can make errors.

Second, don't give up without at least asking if the Archives has the Parochial Board record that must have existed for Alexander Grierson. If it has survived, it should tell you his parish of birth, and it may name his parents.

8
Argyllshire / Re: Alexander Grierson
« on: Yesterday at 09:35 »
Quote from: wyanga on Yesterday at 00:54
I understand that this was the home area of the McGregor clan and at some stage in History the English banned the clan and the McGregor name and that families in the area chose to adobt variations such as Gregson and Grierson among other variations.
Where do I start?

Galloway is not, strictly and historically speaking, clan territory. Originally the clans were a social feature of the Highlands, not of the Lowlands and south of Scotland, though the concept of clanship has now spread to the most significant families in the Lowlands and south of Scotland.

The heartlands of Clan Gregor were further north, in Perthshire and Argyll, and there are no records at all of baptisms, marriages or burials of M*cGr*g*rs in the county of Wigtown before 1766. (There is one record of a Grierson in 1706.)

It is true that the surname MacGregor was proscribed, that many MacGregors were forced to change their surnames, and that Grierson and Gregson were among the names adopted.

However this cannot be blamed on the English government, because the original edict was pronounced by King James VI (who subsequently became King James I of England) in 1603, and was restated by an Act of the Scottish Parliament in 1617. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Gregor

On the other hand, according to G F Black's The Surnames of Scotland the Griersons of Lag, Dumfries-shire, claim descent from Malcolm, dominus de MacGregor, who died in 1374, but he goes on to say that Col Fergusson's Lairds of Lag says, 'There is no evidence or foundation for the story that this family was an offshoot of the Highland family of MacGregor'.

There are records of Griersons dating back to the 15th century, mostly from Dumfries and Galloway, so not all Griersons were proscribed MacGregors, and in particular I see no reason to think that your Alexander G was descended from a proscribed MacGregor.

(You could try to blame the banning of tartan and bagpipes among other things after the 1745 Jacobite Rising on the English Government, except that by then the parliaments of Scotland and England were united (1707) so it was the United Kingdom Parliament that was responsible for that edict.)

9
Argyllshire / Re: Alexander Grierson
« on: Yesterday at 09:34 »
Quote from: wyanga on Yesterday at 00:37
I understand that Wigtown is near the boundary between Gallway and Dumfries
Well, not exactly.

Wigtown is indeed on Wigtown Bay, but it is in the historic county of Wigtown. The next county to the east is Kirkcudbright, and the next one after that is Dumfries.

Galloway (not to be confused with Galway which is in Ireland) is the part of south-west Scotland west of the River Nith, which flows through the burgh (town) of Dumfries. At Dumfries itself, the Nith also forms the boundary between Kirkcudbrightshire and Dumfries-shire, so part of the present town is actually in the historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire.

So Galloway effectively covers the counties of Wigtown and Kirkcudbright, and the parish and burgh of Wigtown is not actually near the boundary with Dumfries-shire. It is quite close to the boundary between Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire.

In 1975 the Powers That Be thought fit, for administrative purposes, to sweep away all the historic counties and replace them with a new set of local authorities. One of those new local authorities is called Dumfries and Galloway, and covers the same area as the three counties already mentioned.

So for historical purposes, like genealogy, you need to concentrate on the historic counties, because all the records until 1975 were collected on the basis of those counties. You also need to be aware of the importance of parishes in finding your way around the older records.

The screenshot is a map which might help. It's from https://maps.nls.uk/view/00000262, and dates from the early 18th century.

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