William Swanston Young Coldingham Berwickshire 1825 died 1904 Tasmania

[RickyJack]

Hi, Just helping a friend as he said there are 106 familytrees with Ancestry and no one can get past
John Young 1796-1880
married 1817 Inverness-shire to Margaret Thomson 1797-,
 their son William Swanston Young born 22 April 1825 Coldingham Berwickshire died 1904 Ulverstone Tasmania
married Sarah Oliver born 1826 Oldhamstocks East Lothian died 1890.
Much information available for William and Families in Tassie , nothing for John or his parents...
Appreciate any help
Rick in Tasmania

[Forfarian]

Tell your friend to forget about Ancestry. You cannot trust anything you find there without checking the original documents.

See https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=714261.0

The only baptism of a William Young to John Young and Margaret Thom(p)son in the surviving Scottish records is in Borthwick in 1822. Borthwick is a parish not far from Musselburgh. This William was born on 22 April 1822 and baptised on 13 May 1822. Note that the day and month match those of your friend's William Swanston Young.

William Young and Sarah Oliver had three children before they emigrated. One of these, John, was born in Fogo on 27 March 1855. Scottish 1855 birth certificates contain information not recorded in other years, so I invested 6 credits to look it up. It says that William Young was a hind (farm worker), aged 32, born Borthwick. See the attachment.

This exactly matches the baptism in Borthwick; William would have had his 32nd birthday in 1854, but would not yet have turned 33 on the date of John's birth.

Therefore the information on Ancestry can be proved wrong on two counts; date of birth and parish of birth.

[RickyJack]

Thankyou very much for your information and Attachment...not sure of the value of 6 credits but happy to repay..
confirms that Williams parents were John Young and Margaret Thomson and Borthwick.
I read the link also...so true...so many what I call "number counters" one commercial company with their auto search allows you to load their entire tree onto yours in a race to get as many people into your tree as possible ..being correct seems to be of little concern.
Thanks again
Rick

[Forfarian]

confirms that Williams parents were John Young and Margaret Thomson

You say that John Young died in 1880. Where did he die? And where did his year of birth, and that of his wife, come from?

Don't give a thought to the credits. 6 credits costs less than half of what most Starbucks coffees cost.

[MonicaL]

Rick, can I ask you a question?

Where did the names of William's parents come from? Do they show on his Tasmanian documents?

I ask because of William's middle name of Swanston. There is a christening entry for a Catherine Aitchison Young in 1818, parents John Young and Margaret Swanston. The christening shows in Stow, Midlothian. This Catherine married a John Gillie and lived her life in Berwickshire.

From here www.cocker.id.au/young/index.php - the name of William and Sarah's children (in order of birth?):

    John
    Sarah Fair
    Margaret Swanston
    Isabella Clark
    Elizabeth May
    Catherine (Katie)
    Wilhelmina and
    Andrew Oliver

Sarah's parents Andrew Oliver and Sarah Fair?

Monica

[Forfarian]

Hmmm. You've got me wondering now.

It is odd that William and Sarah named their second daughter Margaret Swanston if William's mother was Margaret Thomson.

It's also curious, I think, to find a ploughman marrying, in Inverness, a woman from the Black Isle, and then, after having a daughter in Inverness, turning up a few years later almost 200 miles away in Borthwick.

Could there have been two John Youngs married to two Margaret Thomsons, one couple in Inverness and the other in Midlothian?

Might Margaret Thomson have been the second wife of the Midlothian John Young, his first wife being Margaret Swanston? The corollary of that is that would have had to be two different couples, and the record of the second marriage would have to be missing.

I notice also that the trees quoted originally say that John Young was born in 1796, but the Cocker web site says he was born in 1788. Why the discrepancy? Also that Margaret Thomson was born in 1797. What are the sources of these dates?

[RickyJack]

Hi MonicaL
How this came about was I talked my good mate into having a DNA done if I did the paper work  Mr Cocker [your link] contacted me ...he told me....
We share William Swanston Young as 2G grandfathers but I have so far failed to trace him beyond his birth
I googled this name and up came the story of being an elderly man who helped out in the stables, tending the horses for the local merchants in Ulverstone about an hours drive from my place. apparently one day he just dropped dead in the stable, so apart from the familytree on that link I really dont know much more...Ancestry trees all the same, not many actually have any sources at all
Borthwick and Berwick seem to be the places of interest for this family
Many Cheers Rick

[MonicaL]

I wondered about this 1841 census entry in Westruther, Berwickshire :

John Young 70 agr. lab.
William Young 15
Cathrine Young 20

They are all showing as born out of the county so not sure. The Catherine I mentioned earlier was born in Midlothian though so it could well fit for her. William? Would be good to find him in 1851 to confirm details for him further.

Added: If this is him in 1851 www.scottishindexes.com/51transcript.aspx?houseid=74001042 ...he is not helping 

Monica

[Forfarian]

I see where Coldingham came from now.

The tree on the Cocker web side shows the birthplaces of the three eldest children of William and Sarah as 'Park Foggo, Coldingham'. This is incorrect.

Coldingham and Fogo are neighbouring and mutually exclusive parishes in Berwickshire; by definition any place in Fogo is not in Coldingham, and vice versa.

John Young's birth was registered in the parish of Fogo, and the actual address where he was born is Sisterpath Waulkmill. See this map https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=55.72810&lon=-2.38720&layers=5&b=1 and https://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/NT7548.

The Ordnance Survey Name Book (1856-1858) describes it as follows: A farmhouse situated on the [-] bank of the Blackadder at the foot of [-] slope which gradually rises towards [-] North, the dwellinghouse and Offices [-] in good repair and the attached Mil[Mill] [-] which long ago was used as "Waulk [-] or mill for thickening blankets an[and] [-] other Worsted Stuffs from which t[the] [-] farm has derived its name, has been [-] altered in machinery and converted into a Thrash[Thrashing] [-] There was formerly a considerable in[industry] situated in the neighbourhood, inh[-] be a number of tradesmen. Brewers [-] of which some scattered trees are [-] only remains now visible. Richar[Richard] Trotter of Mortonhall is the proprietor of the farm.

The births of Sarah Fair Young and Margaret Swanston Young were both registered in the parish of Coldingham.  Sarah was born at Howpark, Coldingham and Margaret in Renton Cottage, Coldingham. Howpark and Renton are next door to one another. See map https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=15&lat=55.88410&lon=-2.28149&layers=5&b=1 and photographs at https://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/NT8265 and
https://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/NT8266