James Barbour (or Barber) - Missing Death Record...last known location prison.

[CrystalSC]

Hi all,

I'm helping my grandpa's cousin with researching her maternal Scottish line and am having trouble with finding the death record for her 3rd great grandfather on Scotland's People, Find My Past or Ancestry. I started out on the assumption that he died between 1873 and 1881 because he went to prison in 1873 and in the 1881/1891 censuses, his spouse is listed as widowed. That being said, I have expanded my search criteria significantly (years, country and name variations) and still have not come up with anything promising.

This is the information I have on him so far:

*Born 1831 in Monquhittar, Aberdeenshire to William Barbour/Barber and Ann Wallace
*Married in 1852 to Jessie Skinner in Forgue, Aberdeenshire
*1861 living in Mortlach, Banffshire with spouse and children
*1871 living in Torryburn, Fife with spouse and children
*December 1873 sentenced to 12 months in Perth prison for assaulting his spouse (multiple previous convictions as well, but nothing after 1873 that I can find). 

I'm afraid he was a rather unsavoury character but I would like to complete his story, good or bad. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for figuring this out, I would very much appreciate it!

[Forfarian]

The first thing is, forget about looking for deaths in Scotland on Ancestry and FindMyPast. They have only indexes to the original records on Scotland's People so if you can't find it in Scotland's People it's not going to be on any of the commercial web sites. See https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=714261.0

Various possibilities spring to mind, and I'm sure they'll have occurred to you too. For example

- he left Scotland on release from prison
- he changed his name
- his wife was lying when she said she was a widow
- whoever registered his death got the information (age, parents' names) wrong, or simply didn't know

None of which are in the least bit helpful, I'm afraid.

You could try searching for just given name James, birth 1831 plus or minus a couple of years, and mother's surname Wallace, and then see if you can eliminate any of them by finding a baptism record. Then check the certificates of the remaining ones. Though if he did change his name it's not very likely that the informant would know his mother's maiden surname, so this approach may not produce the goods.