The marriage was on Geaneanet.
Yes, but what is the source of that information? It doesn't say, and it cites Ancestry family trees as a source.
Geneanet is not a primary source, any more than Ancestry trees are. It is a collection of trees compiled, in this case, over 200 years after the event.
It could be correct, but unless you follow up every event in detail, you cannot be sure.
I see that there are at least two trees on Geneanet featuring this Samuel Murray. One has him dying at age 102, and it has Janet Johnston, born 1753, having a son John in 1763, which is clearly nonsense. The other looks more sensible, but even that says they were married in 1779, but that there were three children born in 1767, 1769 and 1770.
I looked at the original of the 1767 baptism, which says quite clearly that John Murray,
lawful son of Samuel Murray and Janet Johnston, was born on 12 January 1767. This quite specifically means that his parents were married before he was born. Therefore Samuel Murray and Janet Johnston were married before 12 January 1767, and most probably in 1765/1766. (It is of course possible that there were two couples with the same names, one married in 1765-ish and the other about 1779, but in that case both the Geneanet trees are wrong because they list the pre-1779 children as part of the family.)
It's very common for sloppy researchers to find that someone else has already done their tree, and just adopt it without bothering to check. So the fact that there are two, or ten, or a hundred, online trees saying the same thing is meaningless. It could be nine, or ninety-nine, people just copying and perpetuating errors.
I see that there is a death of Helen Murray or Hastings, mother's maiden name Johnston, in 1861 in Morton, Dumfries-shire, aged 71. Depending on when in 1861 she died, and assuming her age is accurate, that suggests that she was born in 1789/1790. That is consistent with her age in the 1841 census (when adults' ages were supposed to be rounded down to the nearest 5 years), 1851, when she gave her age as 60, and 1861, when she said she was 70. But have you viewed the death certificate to confirm that she was indeed a daughter of
Samuel M and
Janet J, rather than of another Murray/Johns*on* couple? There are nine records of male Murrays marrying a female Johns*on* between 1760 and 1790, not including a Samuel.
I see that the first three children were baptised in Lochmaben, and Andrew and William in Dumfries. The Dumfries baptism records don't name their mother. Have you looked at the originals to see, for example, whether their father Samuel Murray's occupation is consistent with that in the earlier baptisms or in Helen's death certificate? If, for example, the two Dumfries baptisms say that Samuel was a farm labourer, and Helen's death certificate says that hers was a schoolmaster, it would be difficult to be sure that these were not two different Samuels.
