William Oliver / Elizabeth Turnbull

[Danni1964]

Hi. I am looking for parents of WILLIAM OLIVER b 1812, married (14 June 1833) to ELIZABETH TURNBULL b 1813.  They had 2 children in Cavers, Roxburghshire:
John Oliver b 14 April 1834
Agnes Oliver b 1836
William was my great-great-grandfather.

Then the family immigrated to South Australia in 1839 on the 'Delhi'. 8 more children were born in SA.

I have speculated the parents of William may be John OLIVER m 1810 Isabel RAMSAY but I have no definite reasoning for this.

I would like to talk with anyone who has links with this family.

Thanks Danni

[DudelsackHogg]

Hi Danni,

You mentioned on the other Turnbull thread that William Oliver and Elizabeth Turnbull had the following children:

John Oliver 1834 Cavers
Agnes Oliver 1836 Cavers
Robert Oliver 1841
Jane Oliver 1843
Andrew Oliver 1845
Ebenezer Oliver 1847
William Oliver 1849
Ann Cameron Oliver 1851
Archibald Oliver 1853 
Thomas Oliver 1856


The Scots, for the most part, had a naming pattern which can be seen in many families. The pattern generally went as follows:

The first son was named for his father's father.
The second son was named for his mother's father.
The third son was named for his father's father's father.
The fourth son was named for his mother's mother's father.
The fifth son was named for his father's mother's father.
The sixth son was named for his mother's father's father.
The seventh through tenth sons were named for their father's four great-grandfathers.
The eleventh through fourteenth sons were named for their mother's four great-grandfathers.

The first daughter was named for her mother's mother.
The second daughter was named for her father's mother.
The third daughter was named for her mother's father's mother.
The fourth daughter was named for her father's father's mother.
The fifth daughter was named for her mother's mother's mother.
The sixth daughter was named for her father's mother's mother.
The seventh through tenth daughters were named for their mother's four great-grandmothers.
The eleventh through fourteenth daughters were named for their father's four great-grandmothers.

Scottish naming conventions may come in handy here when trying to identify William and Elizabeth’s family.
Based solely on this I would suggest that William’s parents would be John and Jane and Elizabeth’s Robert and Agnes.

Looking at Scotland’s people there is a birth of a William Oliver that would fit with this

OLIVER WILLIAM JOHN OLIVER/JANE FAIRLY FR611 SON 4 CHILD 8 (FR611)
M 30/01/1814. 789/20 315 Hawick

However, looking at the other children of John and Jane Fairly -

James 1802
George 1803
John 1805
Jane 1807
Christian 1809
Margaret 1810
William 1814
James 1814
Thomas Fairley 1816

There are no James's or George's in your tree so this is probably not the right entry for your William.

Looking at your suggestion of John Oliver and Isabel Ramsay

They have:

John 1811
William 1812
William 1815
Alexander 1817
George 1819

As there are two Williams so it seems likely that the 1812 William died in infancy or they were following a naming convention very strictly. And again Alexander and George do not appear in the naming of the children.


There is a John Oliver who marries a Jeany Buckham in 1806 who might be worth investigating.

OLIVER, JOHN  JEANY, BUCKHAM/FR149 (FR149) 27/06/1806 806/10 141 Southdean and Abbotrule

Also:

OLIVER, JOHN JANET, DODDS/FR762 (FR762) 29/07/1804 786/10 197 Crailing

I would also investigate the name Ebenezer and see if this will help you. It’s not as common and may provide a breakthrough. As Ebenezer is the fourth son he would be named for the mother’s mothers father.

In particular look at:

TURNBULL, EBENEZER   ROBERT TURNBULL/AGNES OLIVER FR398 (FR398) M 25/02/1821 785/ 30 46 Cavers

I would strongly suggest this Ebenezer is the brother of your Elizabeth. Especially given the Cavers connection.

There are another two recorded Ebenezer Turnbulls born in Roxburgh around this time:

TURNBULL, EBENEZER   JOHN TURNBULL/MARGARET CUMMING FR2101 (FR2101) M  02/01/1825 792/ 70 125 Jedburgh

TURNBULL, EBENEZER   ALEXAN ALEXANDER TURNBULL/ M  05/08/1831  790/20 19 Hobkirk


Robert, John and Alexander are likely connected, possibly brothers, so I would build a tree looking at them too.

Census entries for Ebenezer’s.

https://www.scottishindexes.com/41transcript.aspx?houseid=79004003

https://www.scottishindexes.com/51transcript.aspx?houseid=78501007
https://www.scottishindexes.com/61transcript.aspx?houseid=78501048


Then I would look at Archibald, which again is less common and may prove easier to piece together.
As Archibald is the 6th son in theory he would be named for the mother’s father’s father and there is an Archibald Turnbull who marries an Ann Rutherford in 1760 announced in Wilton and Bedrule.

TURNBULL ARCHBALD ANN RUTHERFORD/FR338 (FR338) 17/02/1760 810/ 20 153 Wilton

That entry is worth looking at.

I’m attaching a tree based only on the above naming convention. Be careful though, there is a notable gap between the births of William and Elizabeth’s children but that could possibly be explained by the emigration. Also, the above naming convention was not always adhered to and there are several variations to it. Be careful not to follow this too closely, it is meant only as a guide to further your research and try not to make the mistake of making the records fit to what you want (which I've possibly done with Archibald and Ann - just thought I would flag the entry). And on that point of this just being a guide, if Robert, John and Alexander Turnbull are brothers, then the Ebenezer name must come from the Turnbull paternal line and not as the naming convention tree shows.

I hope this helps and good luck with your search.

[DudelsackHogg]

https://www.scottishindexes.com/41transcript.aspx?houseid=78501008

I think this is Elizabeth's parents Robert and Agnes in the 1841 Census in Cavers.

[Forfarian]

The Scots, for the most part, had a naming pattern which can be seen in many families. The pattern generally went as follows

I am a Scot , born brought up and living in Scotland, and I have been involved in family history research for nearly four decades. I have never before seen or heard of a list as long as that.

I have read many times of, and seen in practice, the following pattern:

First daughter after mother's mother
Second daughter after father's mother
Third daughter after mother

First son after father's father
Second son after mother's father
Third son after father

Subsequent children after great-grandparents, uncles/aunts, other relatives, friends, minister/doctor/laird/schoolmaster/prominent citizen or their wives.

[DudelsackHogg]

I didn't just make it up. This pattern The Scottish Onomastic Child-naming Pattern is described here:

https://www.findmypast.co.uk/blog/help/traditional-scottish-naming-patterns

and the paper can be found here:

http://johnbrobb.com/Content/TheScottishOnomasticPattern.pdf
 

[Forfarian]

I never thought you had made it up.

All I said was that I had never heard of it, and in my experience the much shorter pattern, with the third child named after the parent of the same gender, is very common.

I notice that Mr Robb did not produce any actual examples of either of the naming patterns he postulates.

It must be extremely rare for a family to have 14 children of either gender to apply the longer pattern, quite irrespective of the fact that half of all males were named John, James or William, and half of females Margaret, Mary, Janet or Elizabeth, which would be bound to upset the pattern.

I also question how many people would know the names of all their great-grandparents.

Therefore while the supposed longer pattern may exist in theory, it is unlikely to be of much practical use.

As an aside, I wonder why Mr Robb picked the spelling Jennet? A quick search on Scotland's People of variants of J*n*t finds 2,412,918 Janets, 102,797 Jannets, 16,656 Jennets and 9,929 Jenets. In other words fewer than two-thirds of one percent of J*n*ts use the spelling Jennet.

I am also very wary of anything based on studying the IGI. First, because although the original parish registers of most of northern Scotland were added to the IGI, there are significant omissions in the southern parts of Scotland, and the range of given names used was not uniform throughout Scotland, so using the IGI as a resource risks introducing a bias to any results. Second, because the IGI contains, or at least used to contain, some very dubious information. (Though I am very relieved to see that the dates of baptism of the Norse gods appear to have been deleted from the IGI.)

[DudelsackHogg]

I agree that the first Ancestral naming pattern is certainly the more established thinking.

I certainly haven’t been doing this anywhere near as long as you (still learning) but I have noticed that when the third son is not named for the father then the Onomastic pattern does seem to have some merit.

However, I do agree that the Robb study does seem to be based on a rather low sample study and I think given how common many of the names are, how many records are missing the results are far from conclusive.

It’s worth pointing out that the other pattern that has the fourth son named for the father’s older brother is the same as that son being named for the father’s father‘s father, if the first son is named for the father‘s father. Puh! The same for the next children named for the older siblings. It’s just another way of writing the same thing. So although it is very unlikely they would know all their grandparents names it is likely they would know their siblings. But I agree that when the number of children increases the patterns become somewhat speculative.
I‘d actually like to see a regional study of patterns to see how they vary, I also think this pattern is more prevalent earlier and seems to shift around 1860-1880 to include middle names which combines both grandparents names for example, or a maiden name combined with another grandparent name etc.

What most of the Scottish naming patterns seem to agree on is that the first son is named for the father’s father. Although I did come across one family that the first son was named for the mother’s father and so on.

Anyway, for Danni I think it’s most likely that the parents are:

William Oliver - John and Jane
Elizabeth Turnbull - Robert and Agnes

But I say so cautiously.

I thought it was interesting applying the pattern here as it does seem to offer some possibilities and I find it easier to connect the names when seeing it laid out.

The Archibald Turner and Ann Rutherford I mentioned do have a son called Robert.

This Robert Turnbull was born around 1785 was married to Agnes Anderson and he died in 10/01/1863 at the Jedburgh Union poor house (792/ 2 Jedburgh) . He died a pauper (formerly a mason) and the death certificate names the parents Archibald Turnbull a tailor and Ann Rutherford.

https://www.scottishindexes.com/41transcript.aspx?houseid=79201137
https://www.scottishindexes.com/51transcript.aspx?houseid=79202081
https://www.scottishindexes.com/61transcript.aspx?houseid=79215001

Likely Robert and Agnes Anderson’s son Archibald:

https://www.scottishindexes.com/41transcript.aspx?houseid=79205086

However, in the 1841 Cornelius Close / Turnbull census there is a Betty in the household - (also an Ag. Lab but that would be pretty common). They estimate Betty to be born around 1815. Danni’s Elizabeth was born around 1813 and was already in Australia in 1839?

In my tree I have sisters named Elspeth and Elizabeth because of the naming conventions so another Betty/Elizabeth is not a reason to dismiss them as the potential parents.

I would still be focusing on the names Archibald and Ebenezer and see if a pattern emerges. The name Ebenezer appears quite often in the Cavers records at this time. There are a few records of an Ebenezer Oliver in Cavers. There are a few Archibald Oliver’s too and one that jumped out is :

John Oliver and Margaret Armstrong in Castleton. They have the following children:

Janet 1775
Agnes1776
Ebenezer 1778
Archibald 1778
Elizabeth 1781
Thomas 1784
Elisabeth 1784
John 1787

Could this John (1787) be William’s father? His two older brothers being Ebenezer and Archibald. Quite a puzzle

There are missing records here so to find the likeliest candidates is going to be based on probabilities and will likely involve building quite a few trees to explore and see if naming conventions add weight to any of them.

[Forfarian]

What most of the Scottish naming patterns seem to agree on is that the first son is named for the father’s father. Although I did come across one family that the first son was named for the mother’s father and so on.

Yes, I've come across that variant as well.

Anyway, for Danni I think it’s most likely that the parents are:
William Oliver - John and Jane
Elizabeth Turnbull - Robert and Agnes

I would certainly agree with that.

[trish1120]

Do you have William/Elizabeths Australian Death Certs?

South Australia is not my area of expertise so not sure what info would be contained.

I know my NZ Death Certs for 1880's have Parents names/occp etc.

trish