Lawrie family of Wemyss/Largo, Fife

[buckhyne]

Hi Phende,
Many thanks for your input.
You are correct re James Lawrie & Margaret Philp.
Here are my notes on them.

In the 1841 census James Lawrie age 40 & Margaret Philp age 40 are living in Buckhaven. Also in the house is Martha Gray age 30 & William Young age 3.

In the 1851 census James Lawrie, age 52 & Margaret Philp, age 52 are living in Buckhaven. Martha Gray, age 40 is a lodger in their house. In 1857 Margaret Philp died and in 1861 James Lawrie & Martha Gray are married. In the death certificate of Andrew Thompson Lawrie his parents are given as James Lawrie & Martha Gray. As he was born about 1840 this means that he was born while James Lawrie was married to Margaret Philp.

In the 1881 census Martha (Gray) Lawrie, age 73, widower, is living with her  son Andrew Thomson Lawrie & his wife & family at the curious address of North Side of Street Leading from West End to David Deas, Wemyss!

 Margaret was the daughter of David Philp & Mary Langlands but as I don’t usually follow up the female line (unless a Lawrie) I didn’t know that Mary Langlands had married twice. BUT I am intrigued that Mary married a David Henderson.

Catherine Lawrie married George Henderson in 1812, Wemyss. I don’t have his birth date or parents. I have him born about 1791, Wemyss and going by the naming pattern of his bairns I have a tentative suggestion for his parents - Peter Henderson & Agnes Christie.
I have a cousin in Canada who is a direct descendant of George Henderson & Catherine Lawrie. Several of their sons emigrated to North America, settling in Ontario and the US. We have tried to find George Henderson’s parents but have hit a brick wall. Hopefully what you have found might be the breakthrough.

‘Do I read the OPR entry correctly in thinking that, at the time of the marriage,
Andrew was resident in Buckhaven and Elspeth was resident in Dysart?’
It has always been my understanding that the ‘D’ in the OPR stands for ‘ditto’ which means that they were both from Wemyss Parish.
It still begs the question why was her name changed from Laurie to Logie? But only in the margin?

[phende]

Regarding George Henderson, spouse of Catherine Lawrie, I think you are correct that he was a son of Peter Henderson and Agnes Christie. The first time I saw this attribution was by Catriona Andrews on Genes Reunited. I do not know if she has any documentary evidence but the circumstantial evidence is strong. He fits a gap in the family birth line; his children's names follow the naming pattern; at various times other members of the family lived in Largo, where George spent most of his life; there are other connections between the Lawries and Hendersons.

If we are correct about George's parents, his brother David was the second husband of Mary Langlands. She married David Philp in 1797, had a daughter, Margaret (who married James Lawrie, brother of the above Catherine Lawrie) in 1798, and then David died in 1799. She married David Henderson in 1805 and had four children with him. She is probably the "wife of David Henderson" who died in 1845. I lose track of David after 1851. He may have died or he may have gone to live with one of his children, nearly all of whom moved from the Wemyss area after 1851.

[buckhyne]

Aye that was my reasoning for Peter Henderson & Agnes Christie being the parents of George Henderson - the naming pattern and the gap in the births of their bairns.
If all this is correct then where do you fit in?

[phende]

Regarding James Lawrie, I spent days trying to untangle the realtionships. It seems certain that he and Margaret Philp were childless, but they appear to have raised Thomas Mathewson from infancy. Thomas was the son of Thomas Mathewson and Ann Pitillo and was born around 1819. Ann Pittillo was a daughter of George Pitillo. We find George in 1841 living next door to Margaret (Anderson) Lawrie, widow of John Lawrie, James' brother. I can only guess that Ann Pitillo died when Thomas was still young, husband Thomas having predeceased her, (only one child was recorded) and that James and Margaret took the child in. He certainly lived with them right up to his relatively early death in 1869. He had never married.

Ann Pitillo was an aunt of Grace Pitillo who married Alexander Henderson. Alexander (my great-great grandfather) was a nephew of the George Henderson who married Catherine Lawrie.

James married Martha Gray after Margaret Philp died. Whether or not this was a menage a trois we shall never know but Martha's own story is also intriguing. Her grandmother was Martha Philp, sister of the David Philp who married Mary Langlands so James' first wife, Margaret, was Martha's second cousin. Martha had a child, William Young Nimlocks, to a John Nimlocks, in 1838. He was known throughout his life as William Young, however, and no father was named on his death registration. Did Martha simply make up the name of John Nimlocks? William was brought up by Martha and James (and Margaret) and lived with them till his death from TB in 1861, not long after James and Martha married. The bombshell discovery, however, was the appearance of Andrew Thomson Lawrie in 1861 at the age of 20. It is clear he was acknowledged as James and Martha's son, but there is no record of birth and I cannot find him in any census before 1861. He remains a mystery to me. (Was Margaret prepared to accept Martha's illegitimate son by another man but not one by her husnand Why was this child named Andrew Thomson? oes this point to his foster parents? Why was he be born in Dunfermline?)

All in all, this could make a plot line for any soap opera.

[phende]

By the way, the "curious address" in the 1881 census is a feature of all the addresses in Buckhaven in that year. There were no street names at the time and the enumerators identified their patch by geographic descriptions. The West End was the cluster of houses past the harbour and next to the West Sands. David Deas was a draper's shop that stood at the foot of West High St at the junction with West Shore Street. So, "the street leading from West End to David Deas" was the level part at the end of West High Street. Similarly, you find "the street leading from David Deas to Braehead" - West High Street going up the hill. In other census returns, I think that Main Road refers to East High Street as that street used to extend through the Links to methil. There was no through road beyond College Street until the 1900s. (I delivered morning rolls for John Deas around that area in the 1950s.)

[buckhyne]

Hi phende,

Thanks to you I now have confirmation that I'm getting auld!
I downloaded the 1841 census information on James Lawrie, Margaret Philp & Martha Gray in 2006 and in all that time I had never paid any attention to the name Thomas Mathewson. I only now see that he is part of the household.
Where did you get the info on him and William Young?
What's now worrying me is what else have I missed in all the certificates I've downloaded from SP over the years?

Andrew Thomson Lawrie is a mystery but I'm guessing he was born in Dunfermline so that the neighbours wouldn't know. There are several Thomson names at that time within the Lawrie family. One of the sons of George Henderson & Catherine Lawrie was named Thomson and another had a middle name Thomson. Also James Lawrie's grannie (mother of Catherine Neish) was a Catherine Thomson. Of course she was also the grannie of the Henderson Catherine.

That's interesting regarding the streets in Buckhind in that census and you delivering morning rolls for John Deas there in the 50's. I delivered the rolls in Perth with the Coop milkman with horse & cart in the 50's. Oh happy days.

[Paulalawrie]

Hi, im a lawrie through marriage. My husbands x5 great grandfather was william lawrie who married catherine neish in 1786

Would love to share information x

[phende]

This is a blast from the past. Luckily, I'm still hanging on. Reading through the conversation, I realise how much work I had to put in to get all the info shown, but the details are a bit hazy now. They are all on my tree in my PC, of course, and others have published trees on Ancestry, so, if you have any specific queries, ask away. For a start, could you tell me which child of Wm Lawrie and Catherine Neish your husband descends from?

[Paulalawrie]

Hi ,
X4 g grandad is john Lawrie born 1793
X3 g grandad is william lawrie born 1819
X2g grandad is robert lawrie born 1849
X1 g grandad is william lawrie born 1871
And,my husbands grandad is,Charles lawrie born 1911/12 died 1963 x