Could my dad be adopted via family

[susieroe]

My dad use to tell the story of his mum leaving him in hospital for 18 months after pulling down a pot of boiling water onto himself...But even still would a mother leave her child for 18 months in hospital?  It just doesn't make sense. 

Actually it does make sense. Recently I watched a TV interview where an entertainer mentioned the same thing happened to him when he was a toddler. He was in hospital for two years, as a result. Apparently he nearly died. This was about 70-75 years ago.

It happened to me, I managed to pull a pan of boiling milk over my chest. I know that I didn't go to hospital, the doctor attended to me. Possibly not so severe as the other 2 instances, but my brother recently reminded of it and I have a scar to this day. It happened in 1944/43.

A note about Godparents; The church where I was christened noted my Godparents - one of whom was my father.

[Ruskie]

I agree that maybe you are reading too much into this.

Naming your father Angus Rennie could very well be because the family held the man by the same name who married your GM’s Aunt in high regard.

I have noticed through the small amount of research I’ve done in Scotland, that this is a bit of a theme.

I’ve told the story before, but one that I am aware of explained the reasons behind the naming of his numerous children - one of which was given an unusual middle name to honour someone who was “kind to his wife”.

[LizzieL]

My Heritage has an auto cluster tool. Have you tried using that to group your matches?

[LizzieL]

As to ethnicity, I tested with Ancestry and uploaded to MH.
Ethnicity according to both is:
                                            A..y                                MH
English and NW Europe:          81                                 65.1  (Eng 50.1, NW Eur 15.0)
Swed / Denmark                     11                 Scand:      17.9
Ireland                                    6                                     0 
Scotland                                  2                                     0
Eastern Europe                        0                                  16.1
Melanesia                                0                                    0.9

How there is so much eastern European n MH is a mystery.

[Pheno]

Just reading this thread quickly from an outside point of view I feel that you are putting far too much emphasis on your assumptions and interpretations of family stories - that may have been embellished anyway.

All the things you suggested did happen - names & hospital incarceration - within ordinary families, indeed I have examples of both in my family.

The only way you are going to solve this I think is by closely following any paper trail there is and by exploring DNA matches.

It may be that you would get more useful info by taking an Ancestry dna test.

Pheno

[LizzieL]

It may be that you would get more useful info by taking an Ancestry dna test.

More people have tested with Ancestry so you get a bigger pool of potential matches.
But you don't get a chromosome browser with Ancestry, you don't get the tools such as the Autocluster tool as I mentioned earlier.
And what I find very useful with MH is that if you click on a match to see your shared matches, you not only get the no of cM you share with the shared match, but also how many your match shares.
The symbol I've circled allows triangulation on the chromosome browser.

There is a lot for the OP to explore with her existing MH test, before considering another test with Ancestry.

[Crumblie]

I have ancestors who hail from the Shetlands and a lot of people there used to have a doctor's surname as their middle name. He must have been very well regarded.

[brigidmac]

My father was first in long line not to be given his paternal grandfathers name .the story was that he was named after someone who'd saved his father from drowning !

It's a very interesting topic ...caught our attention on each point !

[Maiden Stone]

      my dad use to tell the story of his mum leaving him in hospital for 18 months after pulling down a pot of boiling water onto himself when he was around 2, he did have slight healed burn marks on one of his arms.  But even still would a mother leave her child for 18 months in hospital?  It just doesn't make sense. 

Did he remember the stay in hospital or was it something he'd been told? Early childhood memories may be unreliable, or absent, especially before age 3. Also a child's conception of time is different.
He may have had a prolonged hospital stay if he had a skin graft or he may have been in and out of hospital for long-term treatments. He may have been in a hospital far away from home. What era was it, pre-WW1 or pre WW2?