Tuesday 15 December 2009

15th: John found in action?

(Refer to previous posts dated the 10th and the 3rd)
Ross and I have been mulling over the implications of the newfound baptism of John to John Fairbairn of Grenville, and reviewing what we do and  don't know, and what the dna evidence tells us.
Then along came a copy of a document from the Fairbairn file at the archives of Wellington County, Ontario (thank you Duncan, you don't know what you started!).  It was undated, and unsourced, but was obviously a tree that I'd been given extracts from previously many years ago.
(I've included the tree on the DNA Project Patriarchs page, along with links to the dna project supplementary pages where you can find some commentary on the erroneous family linkages shown).
The archivist advises that it was catalogued in 1994, and submitted by a Nora CARLAW of Elora, now deceased.
From the document she would appear likely to be a descendant of David and Charity (WALKER) FAIRBAIRN.
Whereas the tree contains many errors of fact in linking up earlier generations, it has provided two very significant clues with regard to the family of what we had previously shown as David and Jane (WILLIAMSON) FAIRBAIRN, namely that Jane's husband was a John, not a David, and gave his date and cause of death.

All of which has led me to republish the web pages for the following two Johns:
John, son of Archibald and Alison (CROSSER) FAIRBAIRN, and
John, son of "John or David" and Jane (WILLIAMSON) FAIRBAIRN.

You may be interested in the discussion on the former John's web page.

I haven't yet bitten the bullet and merged the families, as there's still the puzzle over William and Aylsie (ELLIOT) FAIRBAIRN, given as parents to the William who married Jean (WANLESS), to re-evaluate the evidence for.

As the notes for John state, it would be really really great to find a proven direct FAIRBAIRN male line descendant of the families concerned for the FAIRBAIRN Surname DNA project to see what additional weight can be given to this re-evaluation:
"John or David" & Jane (WILLIAMSON) FAIRBAIRN
Archibald & Alison (CROSSER) FAIRBAIRN
David and Jane (HERD) FAIRBAIRN
Walter & Agnes (ROBINSON) FAIRBAIRN

1 comment:

  1. I'm still trying to reconcile what I can find of the family trees that my mother had pieced together on Familysearch.com I'm not sure if you have come across this link: http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:2747119&id=I2428 I think you may have talked to my Uncle David Marston, I posted a link for Donald Fairbairn Marston's obituary, that should give you a fairly good idea where the bulk of the descendants of Errol Hasting Marston, son of Clarissa and Elihu Marston although I haven't been able to find a gravesite or death certificate for Clarissa Marston online. The article mentions that it is strange that Clarissa sold their land and moved to Fort William, but I do know that Errol Hasting Marston lied about his age, and fought in WW1. His service records are not that easy to find as he seemed to have somehow served with a NZ regiment according to a local historian for the Elora Legion. I would like to find a way to connect what you have with the Fairbairns with the few generations I am certain of with the Marstons.

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