Milne family history - (2)

[tommacgregor]

Hello All,

Part 1 of this history is shown on the Angus Board for the simple reason that James Miln (note the spelling!) married Barbara Anderson there, and that's where their children were born. Their eldest son, James was born at Arbroath on 16th July, 1814 and it was there that ErrorSPAM REPORT THIS POST AS SPAM (Use 'Report to Moderator'). DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINKS IN THIS POST. DO NOT REPLY TO THIS PERSON.]he married Mary Elder on the 4th of August, 1834 at the age of 20. [/color] However, the couple decided to move across the Firth of Tay, south to Fife, where they raised the following children at a place called Abbotshall, near Kirkcaldy:


Elizabeth Milne born 3rd October, 1834 at Abbotshall, near Kirkcaldy, Fife
Marjorie Milne born 10th September, 1836 at Abbotshall.
Thomas Milne born born 18th February, 1838 at Abbotshall
John Milne born 14th February, 1840 at Abbotshall
James Milne born 23rd October, 1842 at Abbotshall
Jessie Milne born 11th June, 1844 at Abbotshall
Mary Milne born 2nd June, 1854 at Abbotshall

On the next posting we will follow the fortunes of the James Milne shown above and his family.

Kind regards,

Tom.

[tommacgregor]

Hello All,

On Part 2 of this history, I mentioned that Mary Elder, the wife of James Milne, gave birth to a James Milne on the 23rd October, 1842. We continue now by following the fortunes of James Milne who married Jane Moyes on the 14th July, 1865 at Auchtertool.

Their children were:


James Milne born 18th August, 1865 at Auchterderran, Fife.
Thomas Milne born 2nd July, 1867 at Auchterderran, Fife
Isabella Crawford Milne born 14th August, at Auchtertool, Fife..

I shall combine his posting with the above since I have sufficient space to do so:

James Milne, who was born on 18th August, 1865 at Auchterderran, married at the age of 27, when he married Alison Blair Baillie in August, 1892 at Leslie in Fife. Leslie, as some of us know, lies at the base of the Lomond Hills, and is only a short distance away from Kirkcaldy.

Alison Blair Baillie had been born on the 7th November, 1868 at Bonhill, Dumbarton to Walter Baillie and Margaret Kilgour. Alison died in Kirkcaldy on 18th August, 1914.

I will continue wih Part 4 on my next posting.

Kind regards,


Tom.

[tommacgregor]

Hello All,

In this part, I just know that I'm going to be involved in some controversy, but I believe that I'm sufficiently "long in the tooth" to take it on the chin. As a young man, (many moons ago!), I was trained to deal in evidence that could be regarded as unarguable, and as far as genealogy is concerned, that usually means such things as original Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates.

Well, I'm sitting here in Australia with a copy of an original Death Certificate, but, I'm sorry, it certainly doesn't make much sense, because it involves a number of individuals that are very well known to me. and the details simply don't fit.

The document is Deaths in the District of Dysart in the County of Fife. It is concerned with the death of a lady who is shown as Elizabeth MILL. Elizabeth is shown as the widow of:

1st.  Archibald Bowman, Coal Miner, and
2nd. James Mill, Excise Officer?

It shows that Elizabeth died on the 21st of August, at Hight Street, Dysart, (which is very close to Kirkcaldy in Fife. It also states that she was 86 years of age when she died.

The next part of the Death Certificate is most important, since it states that her father was Thomas Strang, a Coal Miner (deceased) and her mother, Mary Strang, Maiden Surname, Blair.

As researchers will know, the Strangs are an important part of my Family Tree and I am well aware that Thomas and Mary married at the pretty little spot on the shores of the Firth of Forth, Culross, on 28th November, 1778.The following year, on 8th October, 1779, Mary Strang was born, followed by John on the 3rd July, 1781. Now, as the Death Certificate states, Elizabeth was also part of that family, but, to the best of my knowledge, she was born on the 26th of January, 1784. and since she died on 26th January, 1875 that would mean that she was 91 when she died - not 86! Alright, you may say, the person who acted as the informant when the Death Certificate was signed, probably didn't know the deceased person's age. I find that hard to believe, since the informant was George Hay, Elizabeth's Grandson.

All that may be well and good, but surely the name of the deceased on the Death Certificate must be correct - Mill. The difference in sound is not all that far away from the correct name, which I believe was Milne! It is my belief that Elizabeth married a James Milne, who had been born around 1788, on 21st March, 1821 at Kirkcaldy.

What makes things even stranger is that when I perform a search of the International Genealogical Index, I certainly can find a reference to the marriage between Eliza. Strang and James Milne at Kirkcaldy on 21st March, 1821 but I simply can't find any reference to a marriage between Elizabeth Strang and James Mill.

I would be delighted if some of the more senior members of RootsChat would care to take a look at this situation, since I pride myself on assisting other researchers using data that is reasonably accurate. I have done my level best to resolve the problem, but quite frankly, I simply don't have the resources to do much more.

I look forward with great interest to your comment.

Kind regards,


Tom.

[sancti]

The marriages you have do show on SP but I dont know how to confirm if they are the same person. As far as the age difference goes I dont think 5 yrs out is too much to expect from a grandson.



20/08/1807 BOWMAN ARCHIBALD married BETTY STRANG/ at

Dunfermline /FIFE

21/03/1821 MILNE JAMES married ELIZA STRANG/ at Kirkcaldy /FIFE

[tommacgregor]

Hello "Sancti",

Thanks for the response to my posting regarding the Death Certificate of the daughter of Thomas Strang and Mary Blair, Elizabeth Strang. I don't think that it's all that important whether or not we refer to her as Eliza or Betty, since that happens to me every day when people refer to me as Thomas, Tommy or good, old-fashioned Tom!

The main point on the certificate is, that we are clearly referring to the daughter of Thomas Strang and his wife, Mary. I'm delighted to hear that SP does indeed confirm that their daughter, Elizabeth, married Archibald Bowman and that an Eliza, (surely an abbeviation of Elizabeth) Strang married a James Milne.

Can you tell me whether SP has a record of an Elizabeth, Betty or Eliza Strang marrying a James Mill anywhere in Fife, or Scotland, for that matter? If there is such a Marriage Certificate, then we really will have opened up a whole new can of worms.

It's good to see that the evidence being examined is purely circumstantial in places, and that people like us are quite prepared to challenge it. I would think that if there is no record on SP of a marriage of Elizabeth Strang and James Mill, then, in all probability, the spelling on the Death Certificate was incorrect and then, we have a situation whereby the pieces then fall into place.

Again, many thanks for kindness in examing the SP entries.

Kind regards,

Tom.

[sancti]

There is no record on SP of a marriage for James Mill to a STRANG or a BOWMAN. As you know not all marriages were registered. 1 point to note, would her grandson know her married name and get it wrong, Mill or Milne?

[tommacgregor]

Hello All,

As I said in my last posting, I greatly appreciated "Sancti's" kindness in examining SP for evidence relating to Elizabeth Strang. I didn't want to leave things 'hanging in the air', so to speak, and so decided to release yet a bit more information that may help.

I jokingly said that the use of abbreviations such as Tom and Tommy for the Christian Name, Thomas, is quite common. So it is with the Christian Name, Elizabeth. I should know, since my mother was christened Elizabeth Livingstone, but during her life she was referred to as Betty or Lizzie!

With that thought in mind, I went back into my files and had yet another look at the Strang family. Sure enough, my memory hadn't let me down, and so, after dusting down the file, I revealed details about an Elizabeth (or Betty) Strang who had been born in Dunfermline, Fife.
The big difference was, that instead of the parents of the child being Thomas Strang and Mary Blair, this child's parents were Edward Strang and Margaret Weir.Their children were:

Mary Strang born 1st May, 1775 at Dunfermline, Fife.
Agnes Strang born 1st Septmber, 1776 at Dunfermline, Fife
Christian Strang born 2nd Januay, 1778 at Dunfermline, Fife
William Strang born 15th September, 1779 at Dunfermline, Fife
Margaret Strang born 6th June, 1781 at Dunfermline, Fife
Betty or Elizabeth Strang born 26th January, 1784 at Dunfermline, Fife
Janet Strang born 23rd September, 1785 at Dunfermline, Fife

So, here we have an Elizabeth (or Betty) Strang born in January, 1784 at Dunfermline.

We also know that our  Elizabeth Strang, the daughter of Thomas Strang and Mary Blair, married an Archibald Bowman on 20th August, 1807 at Dunfermline. Now, if this Archibald Bowman was the son of John Bowman and Janet Penman, that would mean that he had been born on 1st August, 1785 at Dunfermline, making him 22 years old when he married Elizabeth.

Once again, we have quite a collection of data, and we see similar names, similar dates and similar locations. It should be interesting to see what more work on this data will reveal, if other people on RootsChat become more involved.

Kind Regards,

Tom.
 

[sancti]

Elizabeth Strang the daughter of Edward Strang and Margaret Weir died on 26 May 1863 aged 79 yrs.

She is recorded as Pauper, widow of James Wilson, previously Shepherd, m.s. Strang

[tommacgregor]

Hello All,

As you can see, "Sancti" and I are looking at various records and trying to make sense out of what appears to be a complete and utter mess. Again, the correct thing to do is take the evidence available and test it out before accepting it as reasonable or rejecting it because it is unreasonable. That is what anyone with legal training would do before squaring up in the Law Courts, believe me!

Elizabeth (Betty) Strang was born 26th January, 1784 at Dunfermline, Fife to Edward Strang and Margaret Weir. We now know that when Elizabeth was just 18 years of age she married a George Shepherd and that the wedding ceremony took place on 12th March, 1802 at Dunfermline. The couple had Margaret Shepherd, who was christened 16th November, 1806, Edward Shepherd, who was christened on 16th January, 1809 and Agnes Shepherd who was christened on 22nd January, 1813 when Elizabeth would have been 29 years old.

Six years later, Elizabeth married a James Wilson on the 9th November, 1819. The following year, Elizabeth had James Wilson, who was born 29th April, 1820 and Elizabeth Wilson, who was born on 4th May, 1822 at Dunfermline.

I reckon that "Sancti" and I have just thrown out any possibility that this Elizabeth could possibly be the same Elizabeth Strang who married Archibald Bowman. Why? Archibald Bowman married Eliz. Strang on the 20th August, 1807 at Dunfermline. The following year, they had John Bowman, born 13th July, 1808, then Mary Bowman born 4th March, 1810, Betty Bowman born 18th June, 1814 and then John Bowman born 19th June, 1816.

Quite clearly it would have been an absolute impossibility for the same woman to be giving birth to different children during the same year!

I believe that all of the above proves conclusively that the woman who married Archibald Bowman and James Milne could not possibly have been the same woman who had married George Shepherd and James Wilson.

Perhaps another approach would be to take a long, hard look at George Hay, the Grandson of our Elizabeth Strang. Clearly his father's surname would have been Hay, but what was his mother's Maiden Name? Was one of Archibald's daughters, Mary or Betty, married to a member of the Hay family? I simply don't know at this stage and so, perhaps other researchers out there may wish to explore that approach.

Kind regards,


Tom.