Robert McLean (d. 1862) - cannot find father

[Gille-adamhnan]

Good evening all,

I am trying to figure out who the father of one Robert McLean was.

Robert married Isabella Halliday in Dumfries in 28/09/1840. The Censuses of 1841, 1851 and 1862 note that he was resident in Dumfries and that he was born in Dumfries or Dumfries-shire between 1810 and 1820.

Robert died on 18/10/1862 in Dumfries.

The death register entry lists Robert's father as [Blank] McLean, Freestone Quarryman and his mother as Janet [Blank]. As you might imagine, this is not overly helpful in terms of tracing his father.

There appears to have been a man called Robert McLean who was born in Dumfries in 1814 to a "Richard McLean" but there are no other records which allow me to tie Richard to Robert. Further more, Richard McLean does not appear to have been married to a woman called Janet, but rather a woman called Anne Wood.

There also appears to have been another Robert McLean in Dumfries from the time when the Robert we are researching was alive, who died in 1839 at age 25. This is more likely to the Robert McLean who was born to Richard Mclean in 1814 at Dumfries.

Therefore, I am at a total block in trying to figure out who our Robert's father and mother were. If anyone could assist with this, I would be grateful. If it assists, Robert's descendants all married in the established church, so it is more unlikely that any information would be found for him in non-conformist records.

SOME OTHER INFO:
One of Robert's children was called Mary Smith Mclean, born in 1840, which suggests that their marriage was a shotgun marriage. Due to naming conventions at the time, this also suggests that Janet's maiden name may have been Smith.

Other accounts online seems to suggest that Robert was not born in Dumfries at all, contrary to the census information. I have read in another account the Robert was the son of Donald and Janet McLean. Donald was from Mull and Janet from Greenock (verified in records). Donald came from a family that worked on the sea (verified in genealogical accounts). Donald and Janet married around 1798 in Greenock (verified in Records). In this account, Robert was born in 1804 in Mull (verified in Records, though not sure if it is the same Robert). The family were forced out of Mull and apparently spent time in Dumfries where Donald found work as a Quarryman. No further records of Robert exist, but Donald and Janet did eventually live in Greenock again (verified in records), where Donald was a Ship's Carpenter, as his father had been. This account may be all I can rely on without any recorded evidence, but given that it has some inconsistencies with the census, I thought I must ask here: if Robert was born in Mull but grew up in Dumfries, would that explain why his census lists his place of birth as Dumfries, or were the registrars pretty thorough at the time?

Thanks very much!
GA.

[Forfarian]

Welcome to RootsChat

if Robert was born in Mull but grew up in Dumfries, would that explain why his census lists his place of birth as Dumfries, or were the registrars pretty thorough at the time?

It might, if he had moved from Mull to Dumfries before he was old enough to remember, and his parents had never told him that he was born in Mull.

The census enumerators basically recorded what people told them, and as far as I know they had no way of checking that people were telling them the truth.

Never believe anything you find online, and especially do not trust trees submitted to commercial web sites like Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast, Geni and many others.

There are five baptisms of Robert M(a)cLeans with mother J*n*t* between 1810 and 1820, none in either Argyll or Dumfries-shire. See screenshot.

There is one record of a baptism of a Robert M(a)cLean with father Richard but no mother's name, in the parish of Dumfries, though as you have done I note that there are several baptisms around that time to Richard M(c)cLean and Ann(e) Wood.

Have you considered the possibility that whoever registered Robert's death got his mother's name wrong? Is there any other evidence to confirm that the Robert M who died in 1939 was the son of Richard M and Anne Wood?

If it assists, Robert's descendants all married in the established church, so it is more unlikely that any information would be found for him in non-conformist records.

The term non-conformist refers, strictly speaking, to those in England who did not conform to the Church of England. It is not relevant in Scotland. From the point of view of the C of E, everyone in Scotland belonged to a non-conforming denomination except the members of the Scottish Episcopal Church. This last was, however, fairly minor in term of numbers.

No other denominations than the Church of Scotland are Mentioned in the Statistical Account of Dumfries, written in 1793. The New Statistical Account (1845) mentions eight dissenting places of worship in the parish, and estimates that the total number of individuals attending worship in one or other of these was about 700, including many families from outwith the parish itself, compared to 1000 families attending the Church of Scotland.

As far as I can see, the only other surviving and readily available baptism register for Dumfries is the Buccleuch Street Associate, which has no records earlier than 1846. 

Donald and Janet married around 1798 in Greenock (verified in Records). In this account, Robert was born in 1804 in Mull (verified in Records, though not sure if it is the same Robert).

In what 'Records' have you verified this information? And, if the census gives his age as consistent with being born 1810 to 1820, 1804 seems rather inconsistent.