Marion Woodburn - b. Ayr, Scotland, possibly 1819

[Ruskie]

Marion’s second marriage to Andrew McEwin was on 25 June 1850 in Geelong, Victoria. The image I have is from a marriage register and has no family background information – it just shows that they were joined in wedlock and were members of the Presbyterian Church.

Are you saying the only information you have is from an index? 

Are you able to order the actual historical certificate? Wouldn't this contain more information?

or ...

If they married in a Presbyterian Church does the church hold any historical records of marriage/certificates? 

[I don't have much knowledge of Vic records so apologies if I have this wrong.]

[loobylooayr]

Just a quick reply - cos I'm a busy lady today 

I understand Polly and Joy what you both mean about Marion being down as Mary Anne on ship list.
Yes , it would be how the ship's purser (or whatever name the crew member who wrote the list was called) picked up the pronunciation and spelled it.
But the same applies to the West Kilbride Parish register for Mary Ann daughter of Robert & Janet Woodburn - the minister/church official would spell the name as he heard it - perhaps she was a Marion too!

During my digging for Marion, I came across a couple in the Kilmarnock Parish records who marry in 1853 - Janet Woodburn & William Fail.
The following year they have a daughter Maryann McPhail -
on 1861 Census this child is Mary A McPhail  by 1871 she is Marion McPhail and she marries in 1879 as Marion. I had wondered if Janet was related to your Marion, Polly and was naming her daughter after her. But as usual with these wonderful Woodburns I can't yet establish a link.
But I think it emphasises yet again the inconsistencies of spelling . Marrion/Marian/Mirron/Merron are other alternatives too

However I'm still inclined to think Marion's father was a John Woodburn - purely because the only child she bestowed with the Woodburn name was John. Scottish family trees are bursting with sons named after their Mother's father- forename and surname as middle name.

How terrible Polly  for poor Marion losing Thomas 6 weeks after they arrived for their new life in Australia. That must have been horrendous - a young widow with a small daughter and either pregnant or with a newborn in a strange land.  I wonder if young Thomas was born after his father's death and thus named in his memory.
Thomas's family I think are in Morton Place on the 1841 Census -his father was a John McCulloch, Carpet Weaver. Thomas must have returned to live with them after 1841 and prior to 1845. I only mention this Polly because I realised when researching that one of my own 4xg grandparents and 3xg grandfather were neighbours and probably workmates

I still think your best clue on the Scottish side of the search is the notation on Marion's marriage lines that she was from near Bonnihill. 

Bye for now,
Looby

[fifer1947]

Don't want to interrupt your thread but my irish gt grandmother Mary Ann changed her name to "Marion" in the 1880s in Scotland and dropped the "e" off Forsythe to take the Scottish spelling.

[loobylooayr]

Hi Fifer,
 
From my own FH experience (and from running a few Adult Learning classes for my local council on Family History research) - I have discovered that the spelling of names could vary greatly from document to document. As you say many Irish who arrived in Scotland adapted their names or had their names adapted for them by whoever wrote it down on Census/Bmd etc.

I have McLung's who morphed into McLean's. I've also got the Lilias/Lillias/ Lily among others.
I recall helping a lady at class who was trying to find an ancestor with the forename Matthew on an early Census in Ayrshire.  We really struggled to find him and when we did he was transcribed as a boy called Martha - think the original read Matha which is how the name would/and is still sometimes pronounced by older folk in Ayrshire. 
Looby

[pollyhow]

Hi All

I am about to post this and notice that new posts have come in since I last was here. I will read these later. Thanks for so much help and interest. I am impressed.

Meanwhile, harping back to what I said in the wee small hours of this morning (Thursday) I also now see that Thomas McCulloch jnr's 1912 death rego shows he was born in Geelong, Victoria. I don't know how much reliance we can put on this death registration detail (the informant was his son Arthur Stuart McCulloch). Thomas's father Thomas senior died 1848 in Melbourne. Geelong, I understand, is 41 miles from Melbourne. Marion married Andrew McEwin in Geelong in June 1850. Maybe Marion met Andrew McEwin straight after her husband's death. A solo mother with a young daughter and another child on the way, no family to support her, and in a strange country - she was probably pretty desperate. There would have been no government support like there is nowadays. Meeting Andrew may have been a blessing, and they may have gone to Geelong by the time Thomas was born. But just what really did happen to Marion in that intervening period between her first husband's death and her remarriage in June 1850 is all a bit of a blur.

I also noticed that Thomas junior’s death rego said his father was a weaver. I now feel that the 1841 census record we found for Thomas McCulloch, aged 20, carpet weaver, living with the Borland family in Eglinton Street, Gorbals may indeed be the correct Thomas.

Interesting point that you made, Ian, about Australian and N.Z. documents on which Marion may have had to record her birth details. I can’t think of any possibilities right now but may have to get my thinking cap on.

But I think the main thing we have to establish is just who the couple John Woodburn and Mary Brown were and just what happened to them after the birth of their daughter Marion Woodburn in October 1819. I do feel that they are the most likely candidates for being Marion’s parents. But it would be great if I could find something that links their daughter Marion to my ancestor.

Do you think there could be a chance that their marriage in 1818 was reported in a local newspaper? Did they report on such things in those days? Looby, have you done any searching in the old Ayrshire papers? Are there any online newspapers from this time? I found online a photo of Kilmaurs Kirk in 1880 and thought it could have been the church where John Woodburn and Mary Brown married. The marriage register image shows: “Kilmaurs 20 June 1818 - This day John Woodburn and Mary Brown both in this Parish gave in their names to be proclaimed in order to marriage – two days.” So they must have both been living in the Kilmaurs Parish at the time.

I suppose you have to pay to view any old newspapers? We are spoilt in this regard in the Antipodes because we don’t have to pay to view the old papers (not at the moment anyway!).

Another crazy thought. Do you think John and Mary could have emigrated at some stage before the 1841 census? Maybe they tried to talk Marion into coming to, say, America with them and she refused.

Polly

[pollyhow]

Hi again

Was nice to get your latest comments.

Looby, great that you found another McCulloch family living in Morton Place in the 1840s. Good work. We now know that Thomas was a weaver so it is not surprising that his father was one as well. How fascinating that your ancestors were neighbours of this McCulloch family. What a coincidence. I love to find out about the family background of the people I am researching even if this extra information isn’t very relevant to my main research. It helps build up the big picture. I would be interested in knowing some more about this McCulloch family, e.g. if they were still there in the 1851 census.

Ruskie, thanks for your interest. You ask about the image from the marriage register. This image is from the registers of St Andrews Presbyterian Church, Geelong and I got it after I had viewed the index entry for Andrew and Marion’s marriage in the Victorian Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages website. This website has church baptism, marriage and burial records dating from 1836 until the time registration began in Victoria in 1853. Had Andrew and Marion married after that 1853 date the image, no doubt, would have had more family details. It was unfortunate they married just before official registration began.

Must go now. Have some tasks to do.

Thanks everyone for your efforts.

Polly

[loobylooayr]

Hi Polly

First 1841 Census - Morton Place
 MCCULLOCH       John       M       55       Carpet Weaver        Ayrshire           
 MCCULLOCH       Agnes       F       50               Ayrshire           
 MCCULLOCH       James       M       15               Ayrshire           
 MCCULLOCH       Jean       F       10               Ayrshire           
 CRIGHTON       Hugh       M       15       Apprentice Tailor        Ayrshire   

My family the Nisbets are living on the same street .

1851 - family has moved - Agnes has died.
1/2 Stevens Land Bank Street, Kilmarnock

    MCCULLOCH       John       Head       W       M       66       Carpet Weaver        Ayrshire - New Cumnock           
    MCCULLOCH       Jane       Dau       U       F       20       Dress Maker        Ayrshire - Kilmarnock           
    MCFADZEAN       Arch       Lodger       U       M       22       Shopman Clothier        Argyllshire - Kilminar           
    BORLAND       Matthew       Lodger       U       M       21       Shopman Grocer        Ayrshire - Tarbolton           
 
    
 Note another Borland!     

Looby    
        

[loobylooayr]

Hi again Polly,
You asked me about researching local papers. To be honest I don't have a huge amount of experience with those. The Kilmarnock Standard is the local paper but I'm not sure when it began but I don't think it was being printed circa 1818 . I know there was also the Kilmarnock Herald but again don't think it was as early as that. The Burns Monument Centre  in Kilmarnock holds newspaper archives on microfiche and reel (also some fragile original bound copies) but no online resource that I know of.
 
However I would very much doubt John Woodburn and Mary Brown's marriage would be announced or the birth of Marion. Newspaper announcements would be outwith the budget of the majority of people.

Kilmaurs Parish was actually quite a large area which took in the villages of Kilmaurs, Knockentiber and Crosshouse as well as outlying farms.  John and Mary probably didn't marry in church. Funnily enough I've been contributing with others over the past few days to another thread on this matter.  Most couples were married at the bride's home or the manse (minister's home) or in the case of Ag Labs at the farm where they worked. John and Mary may not have lived in the town of Kilmaurs itself.

As regards the couple emigrating without Marion ....well anything is possible....finding them would be very hard.

Looby

[pollyhow]

Hi Looby

Thank you for the census records for John & Agnes McCulloch.

I tried searching for birth records of children with father John McCulloch and mother Agnes, hoping I would find a Thomas amongst them. However I found there were quite a few children with these parent names and there were four different maiden surnames for the mother. There were no Thomas’s amongst the children, however there were three children with missing Christian names – these all were born to John McCulloch & Agnes Simond. They were born 27 July 1819, 13 Jun 1822 and 8 Feb 1824. There was also a child John McCulloch with parents John McCulloch and Agnes Limond – he was born 4 Jun 1826. All these children were born in Dalmellington, Ayr. But one thing that discouraged me was that the couple in the census records seemed to be having children at a later time.

I looked at the other birth results. There was a Janet McCulloch born 25 Apr 1830 to a John McCulloch & Agnes Baird, who I thought could have been the Jean, aged 10 in 1841, but then I noticed that this couple also had another daughter named Jean McCulloch on 29 Mar 1835. Apart from that they had a son George on 8 Oct 1826 and a son David on 11 May 1828. All these children were born in Ayr/Ayr.

So I never really found any answers in these birth records.

Thanks for filling me in about the early Ayrshire newspapers. Yes, it looks like we won’t have much joy in finding information that way.

I was interesting in what you told me about the sort of places people married in 1818. I had always thought of John and Mary marrying in a church, but I now see I was looking at it from a 21st century viewpoint.

Well, at the moment Looby nothing seems to be coming together. I have spent quite a lot of time and money trying to find a death record for either John or Mary, to no avail. This couple just seemed to vanish after the birth of their daughter in 1819. So strange.

Oh well, something may turn up one day.

Bye for now
Polly