Lundie/Cuthill connection in Arbroath

[trish1120]

Sometimes if no connection can be found further back in Trees its can be a simple as this in my Tree:

My 2nd Great Grandmother Mary Ann Hannah Newby married William LEGGETT
Marys Sister Elizabeth Newby married Christopher Hornsby LOUTTID

Mary/William named a Daug after her Sister Elizabeth Louttid Leggett

[Phildy]

Trish1120

That's the point I was making. The two lines of the family have a common name in them 'Cuthill'. It is the surname of a wife of a Lundie in one tree, and a middle name for children of a Lundie family in the other. We have other cases of surnames being used as middle names but I have direct connection of family members in these instances. I believe I need to look for a common ancestor in both lines to establish why one chose the name for their children.....

Thanks for the thought!

Regards
Phill

[Phildy]

Oh, and there are no Cuthills mentioned in any of that.

Marjory Cuthill Lundie b 29 Apr 1848, father William Lundie, mother Margaret Walker (confirmed on American death certificate) was the sister of my great-great-grandfather. I have absolutely no idea why she got a middle name and why it is Cuthill. Then I discovered, when pursuing the Aunty Jean Lundie family, that an Alexander Lundie (b 1876) married a Catherine Cuthill (b 1884). Alexander was a brother of Elizabeth Lundie, Aunty Jean's great-grandmother, all confirmed in census, etc. The name Cuthill then gets passed down through children of that couple. I'm curious as to why both families have that name, it cannot be coincidence and is possibly the connection I am looking for.

Regards
Phill

[Forfarian]

Alexander Lundie married Catherine Cuthill in 1905, so it's clear enough how the middle name came to be used among their descendants.

But it doesn't explain why Marjory, born half a century earlier, was given the middle name Cuthill.

From the census the children of William Lundie and Margaret Walker were Alexander 1827, John 1830, Mary 1832, David Weir 1834, Helen 1837/8, William 1839/40 and Marjory 1848/9. The last three are not in the parish register.

William's parents being Alexander and Margaret, and Margaret Walker's being John and Isabella, you'd expect the first sons to be Alexander, John and William, and the first two daughters to be Isabella and Margaret. There isn't time for an Isabella between the marriage in 1826 and the arrival of Alexander in 1827, so unless there was an Isabella born before their marriage they were not following the naming convention. Even if they had been, Marjory was the fourth daughter, so she could have been named for great-grandmothers, great-aunts, aunts, wives of great-uncles, wife of minister/doctor/schoolmaster, or anyone else they wished to compliment, even if they had been following it.

So where did David Weir, Helen and Marjory Cuthil come from?

There are three David Weirs in Arbroath in the 1841 census, one married to a Barbara Gardyne, the others single. Was William and Margaret's son named after one of them?

There was a Marjory Cuthil born in Inverkeilor in 1830, parents James Cuthil and Agnes Feddis.

There are a David and Marjory Weir in Farnell, but that's not the explanation because she is Marjory Webster, not Marjory Cuthil.

I'll ponder further but I can't see a connection so far.

[Phildy]

Forfarian

Again, many thanks for the great amount of help you've been to date. I'm reliving some of the frustrations around family history research, especially when it spans two countries! I had a terrible moment last night when I began doubting myself..... again! I started believing I had the wrong John Lundie altogether! Let me explain....

I am 100% confident about John Lundie, my great-great-grandfather, and his Australian descendants. I can trace him back to the 1850s in Port Adelaide through newspaper articles and his marriage to Mary Ann Josephine Moran (an Irish lady who arrived into Port Adelaide in 1855 aboard the Aliquis from Liverpool). I have their marriage certificate and it states 'fathers name: William', amongst other things. I have John's death certificate which is silent on parents names, indicates that he was 81 years old when he died in 1913, that he'd been in the Commonwealth for 60 years, and that his place of birth was Glasgow. These details would have been provided by one of his children to the doctor and may not necessarily be correct. I also have John's headstone! In Australia, the usual thing is to have a lease on a gravesite, in John's case it was 99 years. The authority warns relatives that the time has expired and allows time to either renew the lease (at several thousands of dollars per gravesite and I have many in this particular cemetery belonging to relatives!) or to claim the headstone, which I did to avoid it being crushed for the marble! Anyway, the headstone has minimal information but confirms his age (again from the children who paid for it I guess, and not necessarily accurate).

So, from this information, expected birth year would be 1832, location possibly Glasgow (or this may well have been the last location he lived in before travelling to Australia), and father's name William.

Then there's the family bible. My cousin is in possession of a very large bible which I have been able to date to around the 1860s which has hand written entries of parents (John and Mary), children (some of the descendants), deaths, etc. On the parents page John Lundie is shown as being born on  22 Dec 1832. No mention of parents or place of birth. There's a note written at the top of the page saying 'Arrived in Colony 1855 vessel Aliquis' and at first I believed this was about John, but upon looking at the passenger list found it related to Mary! I have been unable to locate a passenger list with John on it for the 1852-55 period, into Port Adelaide or any other Australian port. The family bible record of date of birth coincides with the death certificate age at death.

The only John Lundie I could find born in Scotland close to the date in the bible was the son of John Lundie and Elizabeth Finn (Dundee 13/5/1832). Why would this be my John if the marriage certificate showed father William?

And so, as with other relatives here in Australia, we feel the closest fit is a John Lundie born 1830 to William Lundie and Margaret Walker, Arbroath and documented in the various birth, census and other records.

This leaves a big question about why the bible (possibly set up by the first daughter of John and Mary who happened to be named Mary Ann Josephine, following Irish naming I guess?) has John's date of birth as 22/12/1832.

Having burdened you with all this information, I again thank you so much for providing me with things to follow up on. Should you see any glaring errors in my logic in trying to identify the real John Lundie and his family, please let me know. One piece of very nice information you've provided proves that one of 'Aunty' Jean's ancestors is buried in Arbroath Abbey, not far from the grave of William the Lion, King of the Scots 1165-1214! Nice resting place, at the location of the Scottish declaration of Independence 1320, buried amongst royalty, with the smell of Smokies in the air!

Regards
Phill