I'm looking for help to break down a brick wall with my 2nd great grandfather Alexander Milroy.
Census records indicate that he was born in Kirkcowan around 1826 and that he later married Janet/Jessie Dodds who was born in Stoneykirk. I cannot find a definitive marriage record for them, but there is a Kirkcowan OPR of a marriage between Alexander Milroy and Janet Douglas on 22 December 1846. He is a farm servant resident in Colmonnel and she is a resident of “Kirkowen”. While the date is sort of right the name difference makes it far from conclusive.
As far as I can tell they had six children, Jess, Barbara, James, Alexander, John (my great gf), Marion and May.
From census records I can track the couple in Woodparks Farm, Old Luce (1851), Spittal Cottages, Kirkcowan (1861) and Main St, Kirkcowan (1871). By sometime between 1871 and 1881 it seems he might no longer have lived with Jessie. She shows up in Newton Stewart in the 1881, 1891 and 1901 census records as “head” of the household. She died there in 1904. Alexander seems to turn up in Whithorn in 1881, aged 54, working as an agricultural labourer and then in 1891 in Kirkinner, aged 65, where he was a "rag gatherer", sharing an address with Elizabeth Hershon (43) "general servant - domestic"
His death record shows he died as a pauper (formerly a hawker) in Whauphiill, Kirkinner in 1911. The informant of his death was an Inspector of Poor. The record confirms he was widower of Jessie Dodds; it omits any information about his parents.
I have searched potential birth records for him. The nearest I could find was an Alexander born to Alexander Milroy and Margaret Aitkins on 14 November 1827 in Kirkcowan. This kind of matches the c.1826 birth, but he is claimed by another Milroy line as having gone to Australia, had a family and died there.
So, I'm stuck with a guy with an uncertain beginning and a sad demise. No sign of connections to more established documented lines nor the mill owning Milroys in Kirkcowan. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
David Milroy