Ancestor from Ayrshire but where is Wintocks?

[Bev64]

I am lucky enough to have family letters from brothers and cousins dated 1829 to 1853. It is written that an ancestor of mine "Andrew Young, of Wintocks" .   I have looked to find the area but with no luck. I have marriage information on his first and second wife and those marriages took place in Loudoun Parrish.

I was thinking perhaps a cottage or farm name? since many people were born with the name of their father, grandfather, uncle etc it is a why to keep which male straight from another within the family with the same name?

I would love to hear what others think or better yet if there is in deed a Wintocks?

thank you

[Forfarian]

Welcome to RootsChat

I see that the same question was asked at https://talkingscot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=10322 16 years ago and no satisfactory answer was obtained.

Are these the letters you mention? https://www.ayrshireroots.com/Towns/Mauchline/Letters%206.htm - if so it looks as if it is John Shields, not Andrew Young, who lived there. In a later letter there is mention of brother John having moved to the Byre of Loudon, and in 1841 there are indeed two John Shields, possibly father and son, at Loudon Byers. The elder one is listed as aged 65, which means that he was born between 1771 and 1776.

There's no listing of Wintock(s) in https://scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/ which means either that it is a variant spelling or somewhere that no longer exists.

Could you give a little bit more information? For example, what were the names of Andrew's wives and when did he marry them? What were the names and birth years of his children? What were the names of his parents and when was he born?

Also a bit of context - if the above letters are not the ones you are referring to, could you post (an) extract(s) from the letters showing the part(s) where Andrew Young was mentioned? Is there a definite statement that he lived in the parish of Loudoun? Are the brothers and cousins his?

In the 1841 census there are just two Andrew Youngs in Loudoun - one aged 8, so obviously too young; the other, age recorded as 35, with Mary, 30 and two children.

In 1851 he is 40, with wife Mary, 36, and four children, all born in Loudoun and living in Darvel in the parish of Loudoun.

[Bev64]

Hello, yes those are the letters I was referring to. Andrew Young b:1780 and I believe I have that info, his first wife Margaret Shields died about 1826. Married Mary Montgomery 1827.  As you can see in the letter dated April 1832 it is written that Andrew and family left June of the year before. It also written that Andrew Young (of Wintocks) through the letter.

I have the family and most if not all the family except for 2 with birth dates and death dates all in Ontario Canada.

I would like to know more about the location he lived in. Loudoun Parrish is where both marriages took place.

[AlanBoyd]

I found this mention of "the Swan at Wintock" in the Paisley Herald and Renfrewshire Advertiser, Saturday 14 May 1870.

ROMANTIC SUICIDE OF A SERVANT GIRL.
An inquest has been held at Newton on the body of Elizabeth Gleave, aged 18, which was found in the Mere at Newton on Tuesday. She was a domestic servant at Mr Barclay's, foreman of the compositors at Messrs McCorquodale & Co.'s, printers, and received the addresses of a young man named Michael Ward, a workman under her master. All went right until Sunday last, when he refused for some reason to walk her out that night. A married man named Jones, a fellow-workman with Ward, overheard this refusal, and at a later hour called to see the girl, and inflamed her jealousy by telling her that the reason Ward would not walk her out was that he had another sweetheart, and was going to give her (deceased) up. He prevailed on her to go out with him on the pretext of his showing her Ward and the supposed other female. He took her a long walk, and at the Swan at Wintock he prevailed on her to have some rum, and not being used to liquors she was nearly tipsy when she got home. [continues].

[Forfarian]

I'm afraid that this interesting report has nothing to do with the present query.

There is no such process in Scots Law as an inquest. Also, there is no listing of the death of Elizabeth Gleave in the deaths index at Scotland's People.

There is a listing in FreeBMD of the death of Elizabeth Gleave, 18, registered in Warrington, Cheshire, England in the June quarter of 1870.

One of the premises of McCorquodales the printers was at Newton, Liverpool.

So wherever this 'Swan at Wintock' is or was, it was not in Ayrshire.

[AlanBoyd]

Yes, I thought it was probably irrelevant, but I thought I’d leave it to Scottish experts to adjudicate. Looking again at the full article there are no internal clues as to where it does come from.

[Forfarian]

The clue is the word 'inquest'. As soon as you see that, you can be sure that it wasn't in Scotland.

[IMBER]

It's academic now following Forfarian’s comments but another pointer is the use of the word Mere, an English word for a shallow lake and common in NW England, particularly Cheshire.

[maddys52]

I read that article earlier today too - she was buried at Newton le Willows, so not Ayrshire.

Couldn't find any other newspaper reference to Wintock(s).