David Ross

[Forfarian]

So she was Joan Tolmie nee Kerr nee Fife/Fyfe.

The word nee, correctly née, specifically means 'born' and it is not used in official records in Scotland.

If Kerr was a married surname she would be recorded in Scottish statutory records as 'Tolmie, previously/formerly Kerr, M(aiden) S(urname) Fife/Fyfe'. In legal records she might be named as 'Fife/Fyfe or Kerr or Tolmie'.

This is because in Scots Law a woman does not lose her maiden surname on marriage.

[1JC]

No royal infirmary on the other two deaths on that page and the informants for those two deaths were the mother and father, respectively.

[Forfarian]

This is a right needle-in-haystack one

I looked at the 1841 census on FreeCEN, and there is only one David Ross of likely age listed as a clerk, aged 28, in Forres, not born in Moray. If his age is accurate he was born 1812/1813 and thus was at most 15 when Johan Fyfe's child was conceived about the end of 1827. In 1851 his age is given as 40 and his birthplace Edinburgh. In 1861 he is a writer (lawyer) aged 48, born Edinburgh.

I'm not sure if he also the 59-year-old shoemake, born Edinburgh, in Forres in 1871 with wife Jessie, 41, and a two-year-old daughter Jessie. However Jessie's birth (IGI) names her father as Rose, not Ross, as does the marriage index of her parents, so probably not.

Of course FreeCEN does not (yet) have full coverage of the census, so it may be that David Ross is lurking in one of the places not yet transcribed by the FreeCEN project. Though there is full coverage of all 33 Scottish counties in 1841, so if he is lurking as David Ross, it's not in Scotland.

Then again he might be lurking (or misrecorded or mistranscribed) as David Rose, or he might have adopted a totally different name.

I also looked at the online transcription of the Dundee Howff burials, but there is no David Ross described as printer, lithographer, clerk or writer there.

It is possible that Johan just invented a father for her child. She wouldn't be the first to do so, but in that event I'd expect her to have told the kirk session that he had gone to somewhere like America.

Odd that the extract came from the records of the United Presbyterian Church, which didn't exist in 1828 - it was founded in 1847. Perhaps it was actually the kirk session of one of the denominations that later amalgamated to form the United Presbyterian Church? However the absence of any mention of David Ross suggests that he was not a member of the UP congregation.

Perhaps he absconded in order to avoid having to maintain his child?

As for him being listed as deceased in 1856, this too may be a convenient bending of the truth, or maybe Johan had just told Alexander that his father was dead. These things happen.

There is a very small possibility that, if he was a member of some other congregation, that congregation's kirk session might have disciplined David. But you don't even know for certain that he lived in Dundee - it wasn't unusual for a girl to become pregnant while working away from home.

So I'm afraid I haven't done any damage at all to your brick wall. At best I have eliminated a couple of bricks that are not going to fall out of the wall.

[1JC]

Thanks for that Forfarian.

I did go down those rabbit holes and came to the same conclusion, so I don't feel so useless now.

One potential clue that I have not followed up is that David Ross and? Joan Fife called their illegitimate child Alexander. Joan's father is James or John (according to her subsequent marriage records). So it is possible that Alexander was named after his paternal grandfather.

There is a David Ross who died in 1830, Dundee, aged 77, a vintner. He was born in Nairn 1852 to Alexander Ross. It seems unlikely given his age and that he was not a printer/Lithographer or a Clerk. The 1828 Kirk record did state that David Ross was unmarried but I have not been able to determine if the David Ross born 1852 ever married.
What do you think?

[Forfarian]

Hmmm.

If he was born in 1752 rather than 1852 he would have been a bit old to be fathering children (aged 75 in 1827) though it's not absolutely impossible (I have found a man born in 1838 whose youngest child was born in 1920).

If he was born in 1852 he wasn't old enough to father a child in 1827.

It isn't impossible for someone to change careers from lithographer to clerk to vintner, but to do so after his death seems unlikely.

So I think this David Ross is a very improbable candidate for Alexander's father.

According to the Howff records the 77-year-old vintner who died in Dundee was born in Dundee.

[1JC]

Thanks Forfarian.

Sorry should have been 1752 in Nairn.

This exercise is just full of contradictory information. I now see that the Howff records on Friends of Dundee show David Ross the 77 year old Vintner who died in 1830 was born in Dundee. However, the Dundee burial records have him born in Inverness (see attached).

The School Wynd United Presbyterian Church existed from before 1743 to at least 1926, or at least there are records for that church that cover those date ranges (CH3/93). The kirk Session book that I got the record of the illegitimate birth from is CH3/93/4 (1827 - 1834). This book is now with the  National Records of Scotland.

I have to agree that it would seem probable that David would have emigrated after getting himself in a bit of a mess in 1828. I will have a search for likely emigration records.

There are other records for the School Wynd church (Managers minutes CH3/93/9) so I may ask the Dundee records office if they could have a look for me. I have no idea what the Managers Minutes would contain.

One thing that has been bothering me is the wording in the 20 June 1828 School Wynd Kirk session record.  “Johan Fife, she confessed that she had been guilty of fornication and stated that David Ross an unmarried man was the father of the child, a statement it was ascertained quite correct. She was examined professed her repentance she was then admonished & appointed her to be publicly rebuked & restored”.

There were no subsequent entries for either David or Johan (Joan)

It seemed odd that David did not front up and I wonder what "a statement it was ascertained guite correct" means.

[1JC]

One more thing.

Alexander Ross (1828 - 1856) the illegitimate son of David Ross and Joan Fife, married Jessie Currie in 1855. They had 3 children, two illegitimate.
1. David Ross (1853 - 1923) he moved to NZ and his death cert states his parents were Alexander and Jessie.
2. James born in 1855, I dont know what happened to him.
3. Alexander (1857 - 1913). He was born a few months after his father died and moved to NZ.

Given that Alexander's first child was named David it would seem that Alexander may have had some form of relationship with his father???  James was Jessie Currie's father.

[Neale1961]

As Alexander was a lithographic printer, it seems likely that he learned the profession from his father, who is also recorded as a lithographer.
In the 1842-43 directory for Edinburgh and Leith, there is ROSS and ROBERTSON Lithographers.
I did not find reference to the firm in any other year. I cannot find a likely David Ross in the directories for either Edinburgh or Dundee between 1830 and 1850. However there is a A.W. Ross esquire who appears regularly which might be worth exploring a little further.
Other speculation, is that David was already dead when Alexander married. There is a burial in 1844 St Cuthberts for David Ross age 40 - again might be worth exploring further.
Sorry, I have not had time to dig further for you today.

[brigidmac]

"a statement that was ascertained correct " suggests to me that the birth father had admitted paternity to witnesses or been only potential candidate or had been found to be responsible in absentia because he DID leave .

I have several cases where paternity stated by the woman or suggested by the child's name in past has been proved by DNA

Naming his own child after who he believes was his father does not mean that there was any contact tho .