Death Record for Jean/Jane Stewart nee Ramsay.

[DeafDoggy488]

Hi,

I'm trying to find the death record for my 4x great grandmother Jean/Jane Ramsay. I don't have her DOB but I do know that she married William Stewart in 1813 in Wiston and Robertson (not sure about spelling!) and the banns stated that she was from Wiston parish while William was from Culter. They went on to have 2 children- John in 1814 and Cecilia in 1817 (both born in Culter).

I got the BDM information for both John and Cecilia but nothing for either of Jean or William. So As you can understand, I'm rather stuck for this info.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Forfarian]

I had a look on https://www.freecen.org.uk/cgi/search.pl to see if there were any Stewarts there.

In 1841 the only one was Cecilia Stewart, aged 24, whom I take to be your one.

In 1851 there is a John Stewart, ploughman, 36, born Culter, with wife Rachel and two children. Is this your John?

I rather fear that their parents must have died before the 1841 census. If so, then there may not be any record of their deaths, because there was no requirement to record deaths until the start of statutory civil registration in 1855.

There are three avenues of enquiry that you could try.

First, www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk has deaths and burials from the parish registers.

Next, the kirk session records of Wiston and Roberton (there's no 's' in Roberton) may include mortcloth records. These are held in Edinburgh and can be accessed in digital form in the Historical Search room of the National Records of Scotland, or in some local archives including those of Glasgow, Hawick, Aberdeen and Inverness. The mortcloth was a cloth that was draped over the coffin at a funeral. Most parishes had at least one mortcloth which they rented for funerals, and the parish accounts often say who was being buried when the fee for renting it was recorded in the cash books.

Third, there might be a gravestone, and if so there might be a transcription of it in one of the booklets published by the Scottish Genealogy Society.

[DeafDoggy488]

I had a look on https://www.freecen.org.uk/cgi/search.pl to see if there were any Stewarts there.

In 1841 the only one was Cecilia Stewart, aged 24, whom I take to be your one.

In 1851 there is a John Stewart, ploughman, 36, born Culter, with wife Rachel and two children. Is this your John?

I rather fear that their parents must have died before the 1841 census. If so, then there may not be any record of their deaths, because there was no requirement to record deaths until the start of statutory civil registration in 1855.

There are three avenues of enquiry that you could try.

First, www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk has deaths and burials from the parish registers.

Next, the kirk session records of Wiston and Roberton (there's no 's' in Roberton) may include mortcloth records. These are held in Edinburgh and can be accessed in digital form in the Historical Search room of the National Records of Scotland, or in some local archives including those of Glasgow, Hawick, Aberdeen and Inverness. The mortcloth was a cloth that was draped over the coffin at a funeral. Most parishes had at least one mortcloth which they rented for funerals, and the parish accounts often say who was being buried when the fee for renting it was recorded in the cash books.

Third, there might be a gravestone, and if so there might be a transcription of it in one of the booklets published by the Scottish Genealogy Society.

Thanks Forfarian,

I could not find the 1841 Census for Cecilia and now I realise that was due to the fact that on other genealogy search site, her surname was spelt wrong- Hewart. So thank you for finding that for me.

I looked at the death records for both kids and it transpired that when John died in 1864, both parents were both deceased. So therefore they did died before that year. It's all down to looking for the kirk records and gravestones. The issue is trying to figure out which county they died in!