Saturday 22 May 2010

22nd: Triumph of hope over experience?

Recently one of my FAMILTONs was on the same page as a FAIRBAIRN I was chasing around the Earlston records.
Which got me thinking about the FAMILTONs again.
Are the Earlston weavers related to the Ancrum weavers? And do the Northumberland ones fit in or not?
So I've set up yet another dna project.

Not sure if this one will fly or not, but there are several modern day families still with the name around, mainly, as far as I can tell, in Northumberland, New Zealand and the States, but none in the Scottish phone book.

I know that my particular line did change to HAMILTON, during the course of one 1753 deed, and seem to have stuck with that surname for successive generations.

Any takers?

Over view of the assorted links, which have been set up with the same structure as most of my other DNA projects can be found on the introduction of the project at the DNA Projects Portal.

Friday 21 May 2010

21st: Main web pages updated

About time I did a republish of my main web pages (Big Brother) given it's a month and a half since the last update.
Don't think any new people have been included, but several existing people have either had new information added, or their exisitng page tweaked. In general, the FAIRBAIRNs are there because of new information, probably either London records, or 1911 census lookups. The FAMILTON/RUNCIMANs are merely tweaks to how the information is displayed.
All are listed uner 21 May on the Recent Changes index.
One tweak was to alter the place index legends to G and B from G and L, as the former Live Earth has been Bing for a while.
If you've not visited any of the little information icons on the place index, nor explored street views on google, I thoroughly recommend doing so.  Great fun driving yourself around an amazing number of filmed locations and doing 360 degree panning shots simply by sitting at home at your computer using the arrow keys!

Saturday 15 May 2010

William found, and possibly James

Some work on the FAIRBAIRN entries in the Washington State vital records found me the missing death entry for William, son of David FAIRBAIRN and Jane HERD (HURD to them).  Which led me to updating some of the descendants of David and Jane, and finding another researcher on descendants of Mary FAIRCHILD dtr of Archibald FAIRBAIRN and Catherine KEMPS (Archibald being the son of David's brother James).
I think I've probably also found James son of Archibald FAIRBAIRN and Margaret GRAHAM, living in Stillwater, Minnesota by 1880, and by 1930 in Thurston Co, Washington State. In which case he could explain how John (married Sarah DAUGHTERTY) was living there, John being Archibald's brother, I think.

Monday 10 May 2010

10th: FAIRBAIRN/RAMSAY Maxton

See Fairbairn DNA project blog for research on a family from Tonbridge in Kent I believe belong to James FAIRBAIRN of Maxton, then Spencerville, Ontario.

Wednesday 5 May 2010

5th: More Walters

And yet more FAIRBAIRNs.
The activity on a Walter led me to trip over one of my own Walters, and reminded me that they lived in London for a time.
With the increased availability of London records on Ancestry, it was time to go digging to see if I could now find a few more baptisms, marriages etc.
Which I did, very successfully.
The families of Walter FAIRBAIRN & Elizabeth CHAPPELL and his brother Archibald (married Isabella DAVIDSON) have now had some missing data filled in.
I'm no closer to solving the 1881 census mystery of supposed "son" James to Archibald however.
(1881 Maplin St, Mile End Old Town, James is given as 21, joiner, so to Archibald, who is himself only 33).
So, if anyone has a James joiner they'd like to place in 1881, or a 2 yr old.....

As usual, WorldConnect database LornaHenderson will be updated in due course.

Tuesday 4 May 2010

4th: Two for the price of one

Harry kindly forwarded an OPR page he had downloaded for something when he noticed that it would push all my Borders buttons - mentioned SINTON, FAIRBAIRN and occurred in Southdean (it also had a couple of OLIVERs on it).

The SINTON reference was the marriage entry for Robert TELFER and Agnes SINTON, which I had an incomplete transcript of, but no copy, so that filled in a gap in my records.

The FAIRBAIRN reference was the marriage of a Nancy FAIRBAIRN to John RIDDELL (2 Dec 1808), which sounded (mostly) familiar.
That too filled a couple of gaps in my records. Nancy was previously only known to me as Agnes, and I knew her parents had moved from St Boswells to Macksidemoor, Southdean by 1804, and were recorded at Moorhead in 1806.
So still there in 1808, and now with a marriage date for Agnes/Nancy, a bit earlier than I'd guessed from the age of the 1st child known to me (Archibald, 1812, Nisbet Mill).

Updates to the WorldConnect links above will follow in due course.
(Thanks Harry)

Monday 3 May 2010

3rd: Still on FAIRBAIRNs

Tied up a few loose ends in my FAIRBAIRN database today.
Sidetracked onto a separate Yorkshire family, a Walter, and got curious as to any possible connection to either mine, or the Yorkshire confectioner Thomas (see 1st May), or to mine, given Walter is a name common amongst my lot.
Instead of leading in either of these directions it lead me to connect up several loose ends and tie the family back to Alexander, son of John FAIRBAIRN & Grizel JOHNSTONE of Oldhamstocks (which family is not yet represented in the FAIRBAIRN Surnmae DNA project should any potential candidates out there read this and be interested in seeing if there is any connection to the existing tested families).

Saturday 1 May 2010

FAIRBURN (Surrey) back to FAIRBAIRN Great Stainton, Durham via Yorkshire

Intervening time since last post was mostly on FAIRBAIRN chasing as I tried to work the line of John FAIRBURN back to the Borders family he had told me he connected too some years ago.
John had died back in Dec 2008, a month before I decided to re-contact him after a gap of several years - note to self, keep up with the contacts before the threads get broken.
I'd got stuck at his grandfather Fred born c 1865 in Leeds, having a bit of trouble sorting out the options.
Rootsweb FAIRBAIRN Message Board post Who were Fred, George and Harry?, refers.
With English BDM certs about to go up in price my curiousity overcame my wallet and I ordered Fred's marriage cert. and am now back to Fred's grandparents, George and Mary FAIRBAIRN who lived at Kirkby Malzeard in North Yorkshire, with George born abt 1784, at Great Stainton, Durham, so I'm not quite joining up the dots yet, and nor have I found what I hoped for initially, a candidate for the line in the FAIRBAIRN Surname DNA Project, all lines appearing to have either died, or daughtered, out.
The intervening generation was a Thomas married to Mary Jane BAIRSTOW (Halifax, 1858).
Anyone recognise these names as their ancestors?