Hi Ken, thanks for reply. A lot written below, but might spark off ideas ...
I can give you the following information culled from three letters written to his son Samuel Ferguson in 1815/1817/1819 and census, bmd info:
John Ferguson was certainly born in Scotland. He had a wife (unknown name, p'raps Elizabeth if Lloyd St baptism is right - see below) and two sons and one daughter (perhaps Ann as I have a grave receipt for Ardwick cemetery 1839 for an Ann Ferguson: sadly the stones have long gone). The sons were called Samuel and James.
In the letter from John's nephew (son of his brother James, a merchant in Aberdeen and Nova Scotia) he is described as someone 'whose religious and moral character through this life was a pattern to all who knew him'.
His elder son, Samuel, disappears from our ken - and perhaps from Manchester and life - leaving only the letters he received as any record to his and, until recently, his father's existence. I haven't done much digging for him, however.
James (a cotton yarn merchant - as all the descendants were in Manchester and Stockport until the 1970s) was born in the early years of the 1800s, and could be the James Ferguson baptized in May 1804 in Lloyd St Presbyterian church, but I have to find out yet. He married twice, fortunately after 1837 the second time, so I was able to get the marriage certificate (last month or so) showing his father's name as John and his occupation as 'salesman' - but what that meant in the early 19thC I don't know.
From the 1817 letter it is apparent that John died in late June or early July 1817.
I imagine that the family would most likely have been Scotch Presbyterian in those days, but being baptized in the CofE churches later on in the century (and getting involved with the New Church [Swedenborg] too). So wonder if there is a particular place to be buried.
Not sure of financial position. The family seem to have been prosperous Glasgow/Aberdeen merchants, and John may have gone to Manchester to act as an agent, but I don't know. I think his death was sudden and left the family in a bit of a crisis.
Any ideas!
Charles
