why would a family travel from Aberdeen to Peterhead to emigrate to Australia

[andycand]

Hi

Personally I would go with Kinneff because that is an answer probably given by George himself. The 1841 census only asks whether born in County or not.
The OPRs on Scotlandspeople are registers for the Church of Scotland, the CPRs on Scotlandspeople are the Catholic Parish Registers but if they were another denomination then the registers are not on Scotlandspeople. I think they are held by the National Archives of Scotland

Andy

[annaluscombe1]

Thanks Andy. Do you know if the National Archives of Scotland are accessible online as I live in Melbourne Australia.

[andycand]

Hi

No, the NAS do not have them online. There was some talk that they may eventually end up on Scotlandspeople but goodness knows when.

Andy

[Maggie1895]

Anna, Andy,
I've double checked for any Greig baptisms in Kinneff between 1790 and 1854 in the hope of picking up some trace of a family that would fit what Anna has already.   There are baptisms but in all cases the fathers are David or John, and the dates are in clusters, with nothing at all showing between 1796 and 1825.   Sorry Anna.

[matt muir]

Hi,

I also had distant relatives who sailed on the James Fernie.

In the 1851 census David McDill a shepherd was living with his wife Catherine and 8 children in Ayrshire,

Scotland. On the ships log their place of residence when selected for emigration shows that they had moved to Inverness.

They were part of the recruitment of the Highland & Island Emigration Society, and are described as being Very Poor.However another family was described as being Miserably Poor, so they weren't the worst off.

The vessel sailed from Birkenhead Docks,Liverpool on 18 August 1854.

Shortly after sailing there was an outbreak of Cholera onboard & 2 of Davids daughters died.They arrived at Adelaide,S.A,

on 16 November & after a period of quarantine they landed on 5th December for a new life.

Then as now people follow work wherever it may be found.
The link below will give some details of passengers onboard;
http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/australia/jamesfernie1854.shtml

http://www.angelfire.com/ns/bkeddy/HIES/jamesfernie.html
Rgds Matt

[Maggie1895]

Matt, this is Anna's thread not mine, but I've found what you've posted really interesting, thank you, but also so very sad.   Whole new life beckoning and then to lose 2 daughters to cholera on board ship.

It does beg the question though, why was 'Very Poor' better than 'Miserably Poor'?.  Makes one wonder, neither of them sounds particularly good ways to be categorised.

[Forfarian]

1851 census - you say he is in his own home so almost certainly he, or at least his wife, provided the information this time.    He gives Kinneff. so that has to be counted as pretty accurate and is the most likely option.     Kinneff, Arbuthnot and Fordoun are all small villages fairly close together, just south of Stonehaven.  Where the border between Kincardineshire and Forfarshire/Angus sat at that point I'm not sure - at present it's south of there, just between Montrose and St Cyrus, so would indicate he was definitely born in Kincardineshire, but I'd do a double check on births in Forfarshire just to be sure

That county boundary was well south of Kinneff. See http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/KCD/parishes.html - there are at least three parishes between Kinneff and the county boundary to the south. St Cyrus was never in Angus (which was also known to officialdom as Forfarshire for a time until the ancient name was restored by Act of Parliament in 1928) and Montrose was never in Kincardineshire.

[Maggie1895]

Thanks Forfarian, that's useful.    I know the boundary to Kincardinshire is still marked today between Montrose and St Cyrus (even though technically it doesn't still exist?) but I wasn't sure if there had been changes in the past.     I learn something new every day on this board!