Query GRANT and McGILVRAY

[Jaki]

Hi

I have my great grandmother Jessie Grant Solomon Kingwell with parents Peter GRANT and Isabella McGILVRAY. This information i got from her marriage certificate (2nd marriage) and her death certificate. On both of these certificates it is stated that she was born in Melbourne Victoria Australia but i have been unable to find her birth certificate so have not been able to find out if her parents were originally from Australia or the UK.

What i want to know is how common the surnames of GRANT and McGILVRAY are in the UK and if they are concentrated in one area. I know that i will not be able to find out much more until i find Jessie's birth certificate but knowing a bit more about where my ancestors could have come from will hopefully satisfy my curiousity about where this branch came from ...... maybe.

Thanks

Jaki

[PaulineJ]

You don't give any real  idea of the time period in which you are seraching. Are there any Aussie census records available for the time, to tie in Jessie to her parents that way?

Both Grant and McGilvray surnames would probably have originated in Scotland. I would expect Grant to be the more populous.

Pauline

[Jaki]

Hi Pauline

As yet i haven't tried to access anything other than bdm records.

Am looking at prior to 1860 as that is when i have calculated my great grandmother was born.

Jaki

[Jaki]

Got to feeling lucky before going to bed .... its the middle of the night in Australia .... and decided to look once more at a list of possibles i had for the deaths of Jessie's parents, Peter and Isabella. Had only one for Isabella so decided to get the certificate. As it was on the Victorian bdm site and you can download them immediately with a credit card out came the credit card and i downloaded it .... couldn't wait. It was the right one!!!!  
My great grandmother Jessie is listed as one of her children and the age is right and Isabella is listed as having been married to Peter Grant.

I now know that Isabella was born in Drum....., Inverness, Scotland and a bit of calculation puts her birth date about 1827. She married Peter Grant when she was 25 in Inverness and came to Australia in about 1852.

Isabella's parents were Donald McGillivray and Catherine McBean.

Jaki

[PaulineJ]

Well done you.

Might now be worth looking at freecen.rootsweb.com for early Scottish censuses.

Pauline