Kirkland Brothers and "Family Fortune" down with the Titanic

[AndrewMcK]

Greetings from America, and here goes....

My 4th great-grandfather John William Kirkland, born ~1802 someplace in Scotland, apparently had two brothers who stayed in Scotland. They may have worked together across the pond, as he was a silk merchant who emigrated supposedly around 1830 from Glasgow to New Brunswick, Canada. At some point after arriving he married Elizabeth Sarah Weeks (she of undiscovered heritage), and they began a family in 1832 and moved around between Miramichi and Frederickton NB, as well as some time in the 1850s on Prince Edward Island.

Their son Charles was an itinerant preacher, born in 1841. At some point in 1911-12 he got word that his two uncles in Scotland had passed and left their estate to the New Brunswick family. Charles went over and spent many weeks searching them out. His last letter to his daughter in Maine is online in a book where he spoke of his frustrations. At some point he must have found them, and they must have left sufficient estate for him to book 2nd class on the Titanic. His body was never found.

His next youngest sister, Leavinia Kirkland, is my 3x-great grandmother. She lived out her days to a very old age in and around Woodstock New Brunswick.

I don't have access to Scotland's People, so I have no idea if there is any information that might help me dial in a bit more detail about any of the Kirklands, John or his two brothers. I'm afraid I have precious little else to go on. Canadian records of the day were sometimes decent, sometimes sketchy.

I'd surely be grateful for any ideas, info and/or advice. In advance, I thank you, from the Blue Ridge foothills of northern Virginia.
Andrew
(whose also a McKnight descendant of Ayrshire, and before that of Newtonards, and who knows where before that, but supposedly of the Clan of the Black Douglas. It'd make a fine drinking game

[ev]

Hi .

Well there was a Charles Kirkland on the Titanic , although not all the details match yours -
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/charles-kirkland.html

It says he was going to visit a sister in Canada but it looks like he lived in the USA.



ev

[Forfarian]

I don't have access to Scotland's People

At fiirst sight this story doesn't ring quite true. If someone made a will leaving money to a relative in North America, the solicitor in Scotland dealing with the estate would be actively looking for the legatee. They might, for example, place advertisements in relevant newspapers inviting the legatee to get in touch to 'hear something to his advantage'. So you could try searching online newspaper collections for advertisements of this sort. They were often published in either or both of the 'London Gazette' and 'Edinburgh Gazette', which can be searched online free of charge.

Whether or not there were such advertisements, outline information about testaments was published annually in the Calendar of Confirmations, which would have made it straightforward enough to find the solicitor who dealt with the estate.

Either way, if Charles did the obvious thing and consulted a solicitor on his arrival in Scotland, it should not have been difficult for him to find the relevant testaments, since he presumably knew the names of his uncles and where they lived.

It's not quite so easy for you, because you lack these bits of information, but you can try these avenues of enquiry.

Once you have found the listing of the testaments, however, you are not going to get anywhere with this without looking at actual wills, and the only way to get those is on Scotland's People. I don't quite follow why you say you don't have access to Scotland's People, because everyone has access to SP. There is no charge for registering on Scotland's People. or for looking at the index to wills and testaments there. You would, however, need to pay to download the actual wills.

I note that there are 190 listings of testaments between 1850 and 1911 for people surnamed Kirkland.

If either or both uncles left property in England, the England and Wales Calendar of Probate might record the sealing of the confirmation of their wills. Note that there is no such thing as 'probate' in Scots Law - the corresponding process is termed 'confirmation'. However to avoid having to go through the whole process twice, confirmations were recognised in England by a process called 'sealing'. You can browse the Calendars of Probate at https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/#wills

[aghadowey]

Hi .

Well there was a Charles Kirkland on the Titanic , although not all the details match yours -
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/charles-kirkland.html

It says he was going to visit a sister in Canada but it looks like he lived in the USA.

ev

A linked article on that page fits with the details Andrew has posted-
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/kirkland.html

[AndrewMcK]

Thanks for the heads up on Scotland's People - I'd tried looking about a couple years ago and mostly found brick walls, but I know a lot more specifics of who I am looking for now. Now if there weren't so many people all using the same names... 

And as for Charles Kirkland, I gleaned much of what I know from that article, and yes he did spend his last few years preaching in Maine. Ironically, at the time that I learned all of this, my then 9-year old Titanic-obsessed nephew was astounded to learn that he had a relative go down with the ship, and his last known address was in Bangor, not 20 minutes from my sister's house

A couple of his siblings are pretty well charted out in Ancestry and via Canadian census. As for his sister Leavinia, my 3G grandmother, I'm still trying to track down her death date and location. She remarried late in life, and I think she was either in Woodstock NB or with some of the family who'd moved a few miles away to Houlton or Presque Isle ME. Fascinating stuff!

Off to Scotland's People I go, grateful for the assist and the reminder! I don't know that I know enough to learn anything definitive, but I look forward to the exploration.

With warm regards,
Andrew

[Forfarian]

A couple of his siblings are pretty well charted out in Ancestry

Ah. Please be very wary of any trees and charts you find on Ancestry or any similar web site. Use them as a finding aid, and check every detail with care. Sadly, there are a lot of trees out there that are at best misguided and at worst deliberately misleading.