Thursday 27 December 2012

Richardsons of Morebattle

Still investigating the Richardsons of Morebattle.
The descendant chart for James & Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON has a few more twigs on it - anyone out there researching the family?

Friday 21 December 2012

My Beautiful Chromosomes ...

... with apologies to the author of My Beautiful Genome.
Ralph's Family Finder results have arrived as an early xmas present for us both, and show that a small genetic segment of our shared ancestry back at Robert RICHARDSON and Margaret RUNCIMAN has indeed made it down through the generations unscathed to Ralph, me, and to my HENDERSON 2nd cousin who shares his WIGHT/RICHARDSON/RUNCIMAN ancestry with me.
Regardless of whether we can assign this to the RICHARDSON or the RUNCIMAN ancestry, it is a good confirmation that the Scottish naming pattern sometimes works, as that was how I found Robert & Margaret (RUNCIMAN) RICHARDSON all those years ago.
Here's an update to the earlier picture of my chromosome - restricted just to my paternal side's matches this time:

Thursday 20 December 2012

Re-org continues


My original Research pages are gradually being split into genealogy and "real life" and shifted to either LornaGenie or  LornaHen.com as appropriate.
A wonderful photo of the hawk resident in the area by the lagoons bordering my place hastened the move of the photos of some of the wildlife in the vicinity.
Enjoy.

Monday 10 December 2012

William HENDERSON

I've decided to claim the William HENDERSON married to Margaret SINCLAIR as "my" William.
Seems a bit too much to expect two William HENDERSON smiths at the Bridge of Allan with Archibald & Margaret as family names.
This adds SINCLAIR, TODD, BRADDISH, McCLURE and SPEAR (at least) into the HENDERSON names.
Interesting to note the occurrence of twins in this line, as well as in that of my James.

My family tree web pages (Big Brother) have been fully updated to reflect this, and any other snippets that have been included since last full update.
As several pages state:  love to hear from any descendants, particularly any with early photographs, or anyone willing to add to our knowledge of the HENDERSON dna.

As a result of the above update the HENDERSON page has had a bit of a revamp and more of the HENDERSON descendants' vital records (BDMs) now appear as pins on the map on that page.

Saturday 8 December 2012

Bridge of Allan smiths

Wonderful what a fresh pair of eyes does.
Robert's interest in my HENDERSONs, sparked by his relationship to Margaret COUPER, who married Archibald son of Archibald HENDERSON  & Margaret McEWAN, has had both of us reviewing available information on the other children, and descendants, of Archibald and Margaret (McEWAN) H.

I'd previously thought that their son William must have died prior to 1855, probably prior to 1841, as there were no obvious sightings anywhere, other than an 1841 census entry that would otherwise fit apart from it being claimed as William born 1810 Cowie Hill, Logie, by a researcher as the son of William HENDERSON & Jean DUNCAN that I'd been in contact with back in 1994.

The more I look at this family, the more I'm becoming convinced that this is indeed my William.
Proof definitely lacking however as he does indeed appear to have died between 1846 and 1851, with Margaret also appearing to have inconveniently died between 1851 and 1855.

However, 5 of the 6 children emigrated to Melbourne, Australia in 1857, possibly with their grandmother Elizabeth SINCLAIR nee WATSON, so I'm now scurrying around seeing what else I can find.

Reviewing the 1994 correspondence I now note that the birthdate/place and parents of William were tentative at the time, not proven - so time to be checked where possible - and with a bit of luck a suitable dna candidate found for the HENDERSON DNA project? (The latter currently looks a little unlikely as far as Y-DNA is concerned, but possibly FamilyFinder may show a match to one or other of the 4 of us tested for this line over either Family Finder and/or Y-DNA)

Anyone know anything about a William HENDERSON, smith at Bridge of Allan between 1841 and 1851 in particular?

Wednesday 5 December 2012

At last

My WorldConnect database LornaHenderson has been re-loaded to reflect the last few months research, or at least those bits of it relating to my relations and their connections.

Still working on the equivalent - Lorna Potential ie the potential rellies.

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Miracle? Mistake? or ??

Part of the validity checking ready for the WorldConnect reload of db LornaHenderson popped up a birth after a mother had died.
My initial assumption was that it would be a simple typo on my part.
Not so simple.
Although the parish register clearly shows William Walter BICKELL's  birth and baptism are Jun/Jul 1895, with parents Richard & Mary Louisa BICKELL, they also show that his mother died 28th Jun 1894 and was buried 1 Jul 1894.
My next assumption was that his birth year was 1894 and he was baptized a year later - so a clerical error in the parish register.
Or that his mother's burial was misdated, given that it was one of a small number at the top of a page headed 1894, but having none for 1895, then a number of 1896 burials.
However, the birth and death registers show Mary Louisa's death registered 1894 Q2, and William's birth registered 1895 Qtr 3.
Since 1874 English births registrations were compulsary, with the parent being required to be registered within 42 days, or a £2 fine was to be paid. Perhaps Richard paid up for registering a year later, and the birth date in the Parish register against the baptism is incorrect?

Any takers on resolving this one?
For now, my database continues to show the implausible data.

Sidetracking

An update to my WorldConnect db LornaHenderson has been in train for a wee while now.
Anytime I run a check over the gedcom for potential problems I find either silly typos, outright mistakes, or gaps in the data that can be easily filled. Sidetracks always ensue.
The most recent proved a very interesting exercise.
It highlighted that I'd never found, or more accurately thought I'd never found, the family of Robert & Janet (SCOTT) WIGHT in the 1851 census. Wrong!
I'd found them years ago, but had shelved the id as I hadn't known anything about sons William and James, and the George with them was the wrong age. Nothing had led me back to review this isolated family sitting in my database.
So off I set to find the fate of the "newfound" children.

Several trees showed William as emigrating to Ohio and living in Iowa, married to a Mary SIMINS.
As his nephew William had indeed emigrated to Ohio, and been visited there by my 2*great grandmother, this seemed plausible, especially as the 1860 Ohio census age fitted.
I couldn't find a marriage to confirm the id, nor the birth of first daughter Margaret, supposedly born Edinburgh Feb 1854.
Subesquent census data, and William's death notice however all placed him as 10 years older and doubts began to creep in, so I moved William and Mary and family to show up (next update) in the WorldConnect potential rellies only (db LornaPotential) pending more info, and moved on to siblings Isabella and James.
With no sightings in the 1861 census I wondered if they might  not have survived - which may never have been able to be proven if it was between 1851 and the beginning of civil registration in 1855.
Thankfully for me, not so thankfully for the poor family, there were Isabella and James, both dying of typhus in Coldstream with a few months of each other, aged 4 and 17 respectively.
On a hunch, I then also searched for William - bingo. He had been the first of the family to succumb to typhus, aged 21, in February 1855 - so whoever the chap is in Ohio/Iowa aint him.

Always interested to find trees that match mine rather exactly, and note that my rethinks/subsequent research on who links to whom that I've documented aren't reflected on what look like copied data. (The earlier WIGHTs rethink refers.)