How I get side-tracked. Not that this is new information. Having found the toothless James SINTON, I looked at the rest of his family and realised that I'd nothing on his brother Francis Douglas beyond the 1891 census so I went looking. Found him living with Mum in Hawick in 1901, working as a laundry vanman. Some years ago I'd noted a PC Francis SINTON at Rothbury, NBL in 1920 injured in a "dastardly attack". But without any further info as to age, and not having any known Rothbury SINTON connections it was just filed info. However, I did find a 1904 marriage of a Francis Douglas SINTON reg. in Glendale, NBL. The brides on the same page were a Margaret BRYSON and a Margaret Alice RUNCIMAN, so he married a Margaret and is highly likely to be the Francis I'm looking for. With a move south from the Borders into NBL he was also looking good to be the injured pc. It wasn't a great stretch from laundry vanman to PC as his father was one. A web search turned up a few more details about the crime as being written up in a book "Tough Times & Grisly Crimes" by a Nigel Green, and Amazon turned up trumps with it being one of the books with a content search enabled. He had a page and a photo, and even better, it gave an age (and that he survived the attack, continuing as a policeman to retire at age 65). Looking good to be "my" missing Francis SINTON.
Setting that aside I decided to investigate the possible RUNCIMAN bride given my interest in that surname, and quickly found a likely match in the same area, tracing her and her family back through the census data etc. The family came from Scotland but had moved to Northumberland between 1851 and 1861. Working back from Margaret I quickly found that a couple of years ago I'd traced her grandparents around BEW and ROX up to 1861 for some reason I cannot now remember, and it was easy to connect up Thomas RUNCIMAN with wife Alison/Alice/Allais CURRIE to this Thomas & Alice RUNCIMAN in NBL. Not that I know she is the right Margaret for Francis as yet.
Decided to check out the theory by buying the marriage cert, so I'll know that answer in a few days.
And as I was putting in a cert. order anyway, I ran off a list of outstanding tasks where I was considering purchasing an English BDM cert. Up popped the query about a dth cert for William White HENDERSON of Cumberland. Which made me look at that family again.
William has a sister Agnes Gair HENDERSON, so I checked FreeBMD for marriages in a likely time period and place, and up popped an Agnes G HENDERSON marrying in 1919 to a Joseph LUCOCK in Cockermouth. Sounded likely. Off to GenesReunited (GR) to see if anyone had a Joseph LUCOCK of the likely age/place. Yes, one person did. Checked 1901 and 1891 census for Cumberland to see how many likely candidates there might be. At least 2, possibly 3. One was living with a blacksmith's family, so he seemed a highly likely candidate to trace back. GR came up with someone who looked like he was investigating that family too, so queries were sent off.
And about there my side-tracks came to a halt, apart from answering some of the daily mail miscellaneous contacts and info.
Few more snippets about the JOHNSTON family of Awamoko, with a FRIDD name thrown into the mix, so a search of the Cyclopedia of NZ to no avail for the new name.
Another HELSON contact popped out of the woodwork, so there's tomorrow's side-track, if you can call it a side-track, I've long since forgotten what I'm being side-tracked from, but the table is looking slightly clearer, so I must be finishing some of the things I start.
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