RootsChat.Com

Hi,

I have a few stray relatives that I have heard "went to America".  I realise that just having their name and birth details is not much help without having a bit better idea of where in America they ended up.  However, this one I do have a bit of a clue.

I have found a reference to a will made in Scotland of an unmarried man who leaves his estate to his sisters, their children and grandchildren.  The gentleman in question died in 1878, but there is a court order about the distribution of his estate made in 1892.

One of the beneficiaries listed is:  Jane Hope or Oliver or Rogers, widow, of Middlebury, Elkhart County, Indiana.

Jane HOPE was born about 1808 in Roxburghshire, Scotland.  (Her younger sister Helen was born in Teviothead, but that is the only one of the siblings I have a birth place for...yet).  Her parents are Thomas HOPE and Helen PATERSON.

I have not been able to find a marriage for Jane (or Jean) Hope to an Oliver or Rogers in Scotland. Nor the marriage of an Oliver to a Rogers or any other combination of surnames.

There is a submitted entry on Family search for the marriage of Jane OLIVER to John RODGERS, 23 July 1842, Saint Joseph, Indiana.  I have been able to confirm this marriage on the Indiana State Library Genealogy Database: Marriages through 1850.  I don't know if it is my Jane though.

The submitted entry has a birth date of 1808 on it.  This fits with my Jane, but I can't confirm that. (Or where the information came from).

The only other possible clue is the 1880 census on Family search.  There is a Jane OLIVER, born 1808 (aged 72) born Scotland, both parents born Scotland, widowed living with her son John OLIVER, born 1829 (aged 51), born Scotland, both parents born Scotland.  They were living at Penn, St Joseph, Indiana.

Both bits of information I have found fit, but are definitely not conclusive.

Can anyone give me any ideas about where else to look?

Thanks,

Debbie

Hi,

I have found the death details for a distant relative.  Malcolm McLean, son of Donald McLean and Euphemia McLean drowned at Casterton, Victoria on September 1873.

The sad details can be found here:  http://www.ballaratgenealogy.org.au/casterton/mclean.htm.

The article from 1 October 1873 finishes with:

This untoward event has caused a very painful feeling throughout Mount Gambier, where Mr McLean was well known and much respected. What adds to the painful character of the event is the fact that it is not yet five months since Mr McLean was married to a young lady here, a niece of Mr James Umpherston.

Can someone please lookup this marriage for me?  What is above is all the information I have.

Thanks,

Debbie

Hi,

While doing some random searching on ancestry and family search, I have found the following:

John MURRAY born 22 Jun 1814, Eskdalemuir, Dumfries, Scotland  died 13 Sep 1886, Mt Crawford, South Australia.

Married Alison HOPE (sister to my 3xg grandmother) on 24 Aug 1840, Hawick, Roxburghshire, Scotland.

Alison HOPE born 3 Nov 1821, Roxburghshire, Scotland and died 9 Jun 1895 in Mt Crawford, South Australia.

Alison's parents are Thomas HOPE and Helen (or Ellen) PATERSON.  I have no idea of John's parentage.

I have a list of their children as:

John born 1841 (at sea), died 1908 Eden Valley, South Australia
? (male) born and died 1844, South Australia
Helen born 1846, South Australia
Ester born 1848, South Australia
Alison Hope born 1852, died 1894 South Australia
Thomas Hope born 1854,  died 1906  South Australia
Alexander James born 1859, died 1929 South Australia
William Albert born 1862, died 1901 South Australia.

Apart from John and Alison's marriage date which is from an extracted record on familysearch, everything else is either from a submitted ancestral file or the world family tree on ancestry.

Can anyone help to substantiate some of this or fill in some gaps?

Thanks in advance.

Debbie

PS This is my first foray into South Australia and despite looking at the list of resources at the top of the board, didn't seem to be able to get anywhere - maybe I just missed something obvious.

Hi,

I have found an extracted marriage record on familysearch for John Cowan (born England) and Belle Hogg (married 1 Feb 1883, O'Brien, Iowa). John's parents are listed as Francis Cowan and Jane Tait.  Francis and Jane are my great great great grandparents.  John is the one child of theirs I had lost track of.  The last I had found of him was the 1881 Scottish census.

I suppose my first question is how reliable are the US marriage records on familysearch?  (Most of my research has been in Scotland, England and Australia to date, so I'm not sure of US records).  Can I assume this information is correct and that this is 'my' John Cowan?

However, I was so excited at finding this record, I did a bit of searching yesterday.  I have found John and Belle (or Bella) and their children Francis (b1886) and Evelyn (b1889) on the 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 US censuses.  Another child, Mary (b 1884) is on the 1900 census, but not with her parents on the others.  Francis is with his wife and child in 1930.

I also found death dates and Social Security Numbers for Francis and Evelyn. (Can't remember which site now).  Are the SSN numbers useful for any further research?

What, if anything, else am I able to find out and how?  The family all seemed to stay in O'Brien County, Iowa.  I am not sure about Mary. She may have married or died.  Is there anyway to find this out?  I haven't seemed to be able to find anything on any of the ancestry databases.

Thanks in advance for any advice.   As mentioned before, I know about Scotland, England and Australia, not the US.

Debbie

Hi everyone,

Thanks to the 3 day free trial on ancestry.ca, I have tracked down some distant relatives that went to Canada.

Most of them were in Ontario, which was great, as the Ontario births, marriages and deaths were available on ancestry.

One branch though ended up in Manitoba.  After a bit of googling, I found the Vital Statistics site for Manitoba and found a couple of marriages and a death on the indexes.  As this is a very distant line, I'm not going to go much further with this.

However, I am trying to work out where the events happened.  The marriages are recorded as being at WPG, which I assume is Winnipeg.

The death was recorded at ST V.  Where would ST V be?

I have a very vague idea of the main places in Canada but know virtually nothing about Manitoba.  (Though I'm very willing to learn!!)

Thanks for your help.

Debbie