Richardsons of Morebattle

As explained on my  RICHARDSONs of Morebattle page, we are exploring a (very small) subset of the overall RICHARDSON Surname DNA project to tease out connections between the lines listed, and any others that come along, using both Y-DNA and autosomal DNA.

Our knowledge of the y-DNA of one of the lines has just increased by an upgrade from 37 to 67 markers, and the RICHARDSON results page of the DNASurnames Lineages site, has been updated.

Only two tests are now at 67 markers however but at least the representative from the RICHARDSONs of Eckford, and that of William the Dancing Master, are only minimally further apart.
At 37 markers they were at a genetic distance of 5 (GD5), which included 4 faster moving markers, so only distantly related.
At 67 markers that became GD6 by the addition of one more slow moving marker.
So still only rather distantly related - FamilyTree DNA's Time Predictor gives only a 71% probability of a common ancestory within 16 generations.

Jury still out, from lack of sufficient information on whether or not the Dancing Master belongs to James and Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON as we can't compare apples with apples, they could be a minimum of GD1, or at most, GD7 apart (one tested with the now defunct ancestry yDNA test, the other with FamilyTree DNA).

Theory blown

Ah well, win some lose some, or in this case, lose one, win some.
My  recently created RICHARDSON page outlined my theory that  the James who married Margaret MABON, and was widowed in 1812, went on to marry Christian OUTERSON and emigrate to Quebec.
A descendant of James & Margaret has popped out of the woodwork and shared his DNA results (many thanks).
These have been converted, where possible, to match our existing FamilyTree DNA results and now appear on the RICHARDSON page at DNA Surnames.
They make it look unlikely that we are talking about the same James here.

The "win" in the equation however is that we now have three matching Border RICHARDSON trees!
Exactly where they connect however remains to be seen.

Three trees down, how many others to go?

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?

Morebattle ctd

My RICHARDSON page has been updated to include a couple more descendant charts, and a slightly updated timeline (including one or two date ranges for some families to show when their children were being baptized at Morebattle).
As I continue digging around on Borders RICHARDSONs I come across families I've looked at before, some had already been included in my LornaPotential database for many years.
So, if they had a Morebattle connection, or a connection to those that do, they've now been included on the RICHARDSON page. Might help someone!

And Henry too?

The growing RICHARDSON page has been updated to include the family of Henry and Ann (PRESTON) RICHARDSON, where Henry appears to track back to James RICHARDSON & Isabel PRINGLE of Over Roxburgh.
Henry and Ann were also eschewing the established curch for the Morebattle Gateshaw sessions around the same time as James and Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON, and had emigrated to Quebec by 1832, as had James and Christian (OUTERSON) RICHARDSON, which James may, or may not, be one and the same.

Usual plea - any direct male RICHARDSON of Henry and Ann out there interested enough in their family history who would be willing to join the RICHARDSON DNA project to see if there's a match to John and Ralph?

Also added to the page is a timeline of relevant events to the above RICHARDSON families against the lifespans of some of the main characters. Suggestions of significant events to be added welcome.

With all this RICHARDSON activity, especially the repeating use of Andrew as a family name, and the extension from Morebattle to Roxburgh, the family of Andrew and Mary (WATSON) RICHARDSON also came back into view. They've been lurking in my database LornaPotential for many years as this tree inter-connects many times over with assorted lines in mine. So a brief descendant list for them as been added as well - the connection to the above being Roxburgh rather than Morebattle however, with Crailing thrown in.

WorldConnect updated

A fresh copy of the WorldConnect database LornaHenderson, the online tree of BDM data on the rellies no longer with us, and their connections,  has been uploaded.
Last updated in April, so a few months of updates.
Although not proven to be a connection, some of the Morebattle RICHARDSON research from the last few days has also been included in the hope of flushing some descendants out of the woodwork.

While onto updates, database LornaPotential has also had a rather overdue review.
Several people have been shifted into the above Lorna Henderson database as they are now either know to be relations, or connect to people who are, others have been dropped off. There's more that can be reviewed given the timespan since last review (last updated March 2010!), and the fact that 50 of them are "orphans", ie not connected to anyone else in the database, but pegged as of potential interest, mostly as possible sightings of one or other of the rellies.

Speculation rife

Couldn't quite give up on the RICHARDSONs.
Went back to my 2008 notes from the Morebattle Gateshaw session records to see if there might be a re-marriage of the widowed James, whose wife Margaret MABON had died in childbirth in 1812.
Although 8 years seems a little too long to wait to get a mother to his bairns, the family of James and Christian (OUTERSON) RICHARDSON came back into view. There's nothing on the 1820 Eckford marriage entry that indicates James was a widower, just that he was from Morebattle.
I'd never managed to find traces of them in Scottish censuses.
Spurred on by reminding myself that they had a son named Archibald Moffat RICHARDSON (Morebattle, 1832), I widened the net to the States.
An Archibald Moffat name is just too much of a coincidence given the Bermuda James' wife Mary MOFFATT, and her father Archibald MOFFATT.

Son Robert pops up in Winnebago Co., Wisconsin by 1850, stating he was born in Canada! Later censuses correct that back to Scotland, with 1900 adding an emigration date of 1841, and the 1860 having (mother assumed) Christy RICHARDSON, aged 64, born Scotland with the family.
His two subsequent remarriage indexes, between them, show his parents as James RICHARDSON and Christiana "OTTASUS" !
The mistranscriptions of OUTERSON abound, but that one takes the cake.

With the hint of Canada being somehow significant the net got wider.
Up popped son Andrew, with (assumed mother) Christian in the Quebec household in 1881.
Andrew thought he had emigrated in 1837.
One family tree has decided that Christian was born in Yorkshire (census records both indicated Scotland) - but as the Bermuda James married and had one child in Leeds, this may have been a bit of lingering family misinformation?

Another tree claims David for the James/Christian family but I haven't yet verified that one, other than yes, he's the right age, and of more than passing interest, is to be found in Oneida county, New York in one census - where Thomas of Bermuda settled. Well, the same county anyway, Thomas was at Trenton, David at Deerfield - which appear to be about 12 miles apart.

Just maybe, one day we'll find that John's Adam, born 1835 in New York, does belong to James of Morebattle after all, but the father not the son?  He's only 3 years after Archibald Moffat RICHARDSON was born in Morebattle to Christian.

The difference an s makes

Back to the drawing board.
Having gone from the Bermuda Triangle to the Pirates of the Caribbean*, John has reviewed the information that led us to examine the family of James & Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON of Morebattle, descendants in Bermuda, Canada and the States - at least.

His relationship has been relegated to one by marriage as it was the granddaughter of James RICHARDSON, tailor in Bermuda, that was the connection, not her husband William Meade RICHARDSON, sometime photographer of Bermuda, later of Wisconsin (Mrs W M RICHARDSON, not Mr W M RICHARDSON).

However, Ralph's and my interest remain because of the Morebattle Gateshaw session connection.

The newly uploaded Richardson page on my family tree pages has been updated to reflect this change.

* The Pirates reference being that James' daughter Catherine Haddon Moffatt RICHARDSON married Hezekiah FRITH, grandson of the pirate.

RICHARDSONs

Spurred on by the recent RICHARDSON finding, the RICHARDSONs have been promoted to having a page of their own on my main webpages
It includes the chart of William RICHARDSON of Pringlestead's descendants that was already present, but William is now joined by charts of the families of James and Margaret (MABON) RICHARDSON and William, the dancing master, or at least some of them.
Not all of the descendants found in the records have been entered.
Reviewing my notes from the Morebattle Gateshaw Session records I can spot several other RICHARDSON families that I noted in passing.  These will now get a closer scrutiny!

Bermuda!

Some time ago we found a dna match between Ralph and John RICHARDSON.
John's family knowledge started in New York with the birth of an Adam in 1835, but without any knowledge of his parents.
John has been back in touch, having found a snippet that indicates Adam father was a James, tailor, who emigrated to Bermuda with a brother (also a tailor, unnamed, but probably Thomas as his Oneida death is reported in a Bermuda paper and states the relationship to James ).

So, the prior suggestion that his family might be Adam and Margaret (BROWN) RICHARDSON has taken a new turn of events.

James' 1879 obit. brings in a brother John of North Georgetown, and a sister Mrs Samuel MOFFAT of Beechridge, (Beauharnais, Quebec), which most definitely leads to the family of James RICHARDSON & Margaret MABON of Morebattle.
When reading the Gateshaw Session records I had noted this family as being of potential interest, so it just goes to show that all little snippets squirrelled away usually come in handy sooner or later!

John is now on a hunt to definitively link his Adam to James, but there is indeed circumstantial evidence in that he did know that Adam's three sons had a photography studio in Bermuda before returning to their birthplace of Wisconsin.
And I've found that Thomas, a tailor, died 1880 in Oneida, NY, had a son William Thomas, or Thomas William, born Bermuda around 1850, who was a photographer.

Investigations proceed. 

Relationships clarified & yet more connections

Reading old newspapers, as one does, I stumbled upon a different obituary for the Rev John FAIRBAIRN of Greenlaw than that I had previously seen. This one was in The Free Church of Scotland Monthly (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1 Jun 1895, and contained a new interesting little snippet for my FAIRBAIRN research: "Along with his more distinguished brother Dr Patrick FAIRBAIRN, Principal of the Free Church College Glasgow, he spent his youth at Hallyburton, ... while his two cousins Dr James FAIRBAIRN of Newhaven, and Dr John PURVES of Jedburgh, had their homes at farms a few miles further west in the same district."
I've been tripping over the Newhaven James often enough in the past but had never managed to place him in any of my known FAIRBAIRN trees, his death cert showing his parents as James FAIRBAIRN and Elizabeth TAYLOR, with the only other known (to me) family being an unmarried sister Eliza.
Knowing that the Rev John's grandparents were a James and Elizabeth (PURVES) FAIRBAIRN, and quickly finding out that Dr John PURVES was the son of Peter PURVES and Margaret FAIRBAIRN, with Margaret looking highly likely to be a dtr of James and Elizabeth (PURVES) FAIRBAIRN, I've now placed the Newhaven James as brother of Margaret and the Rev John's father John (marr. to Jessie JOHNSTON).
The informant for the Newhaven James' 1874 death was his cousin, a Peter someone of Ferry Rd.
I had initially taken a stab at the squiggle being THOMSON, but have subsequently confirmed that it is actually Peter Chas PURVES, who was living in Ferry Rd in 1881, Peter Charles being the son of the Jedburgh Dr John PURVES above, and being yet another minister in the family - presumably ministering to my own FAIRBAIRNs at Morebattle, given he was the Free Church minister there in the 1861 and 1871 censuses.

two shillings per horse

The latest (Dec 2009) Scottish Genealogist provides the information that back in Oct a new website was launched as a joint venture between the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland, and the National Archives of Scotland.
Check out Scotland's Places, I've already got myself sidetracked from the 1797 Farm Horse Tax Rolls, having found a family of RICHARDSONs buried in the wonderfully named Black Swamp Cemetery of Hampton Co., Sth Carolina.
All because the Morebattle Horse Tax rolls mentioned a Revd W RICHARDSON, and I only knew about a James. The Rev W had two horses, so had to pay 4/-
I went fishing. Henry, son of Rev James RICHARDSON of Morebattle, is buried in said swamp (he married a Mary FRASER from Beaufort, which I'm assuming is the Sth Carolina Beaufort for now).
So far I've found Henry's daughter-in-law Mary Asinthe MANER, described as a "ladie farmer", and her son John Maner RICHARDSON as a rice planter.
Absolutely no idea if these RICHARDSONs are in any way connected to my RICHARDSONs (who were actually at Maxton), or the Revd W RICHARDSON, but they sounded intriguing.

Seasons greetings to you and yours.

Bit preoccupied of late

As the lack of posts signify, I've been a bit preoccupied this week, annual accounts to get to the auditor, and other things interfering with the fun stuff in life.

Took some time out from that however to do a quick update to the descendant chart for John & Elizabeth (MILLER) FAIRBAIRN of New York, as Rosalie couldn't see where she fitted into the overall scheme of things. More updates to come as I realised I hadn't finished checking off several of them in the census records etc. We'll soon know if all this is work on relations rather than just potential relations as a dna kit is winging it's way to the lab. Not that I'll want to believe it if we don't get an immediate match as I've more or less convinced myself that this John is a son of my Walter and Agnes (ROBISON/ROBERTSON) FAIRBAIRN of Morebattle, given he fits a gap in the known children, and we're looking for a son John to make the naming pattern fit.

Greenes? now Cavers!

Reviewed the Morebattle Gateshaw Film to see if I could decipher David FAIRBAIRN's birthplace a little better. Scrub "Greenes?", I now reckon it is Cavers, Parish of Eckford, which I thought was in Southdean, but GenUKi's gazetteer says has its own parish.
The webpage recentchanges for the 9th/10th, apart from David, are cosmetic changes rather than information changes.

Eckford not Morebattle

Check out the Recent changes. Mostly from my finally reading the Morebattle Gateshaw Associate Session records - long overdue. Turns out that my "Morebattle" FAIRBAIRNs, are actually Eckford FAIRBAIRNs with a thing against the local Established Church at Eckford, having their children baptised by the Gateshaw minister at Morebattle instead. Assuming that my Walter really did know where he was born (Swinton), then Archibald and Alison moved from there to Eckford and were at Grahamslaw and then ?Greenes? for the next three baptisms.
Which may well add some weight to Betsy's current search for why David had McDOUGALL as his middle name - seem to be a few of them in Eckford.
If you're wondering where the rest of the research log went, I've archived off the first 6 months of the year into 2008: Jan-Jun

FAIRBAIRN/RICHARDSON happenstance

Interesting what you find when looking for other things. I was checking out the Ednam blacksmith FAIRBAIRNs, and in 1871 I found one Isabella RICHARDSON, 17 of Morebattle, as a servant in the household of Edward and Isabella (HOGARTH) FAIRBAIRN. Isabella is the dtr of James RICHARDSON and Mary HOGG, and went on to have two illegitimate sons, Robert and Alexander, and died at the rather young age of 23.

Andrew William Alexander * 2

Oh the satisfaction gained from proving yet another theory. Yes the two Andrew William Alexander RICHARDSONs were related, father and son. Andrew RICHARDSON has been updated with the findings from his army record, and a picture of him from his obituary added (courtesy of Ian W in Oz). Also added Jane RICHARDSON from Morebattle to the web pages given I found her will and was surprised to find her brother was a Police Constable in Blyth, Northumberland, where one of her distant cousins down a different line now lives.
The RUNCIMAN chart will also show some additions given that the military file for "Capt Andy" also listed another son family had not heard of, a William Record RICHARDSON, whom I think I've found being buried in Dargaville in 1969 at age 72.
The DICKSON updates shown under recent changes were the addition of census data I'd not previously chased down, prompted by a contact on another DIXON line I initially thought was this lot.

RICHARDSON wills

Continued working thru some RICHARDSON wills and inventories. When looking for Jane RICHARDSON, d/o James RICHARDSON and Jane RUSSELL I found that of Jane RICHARDSON d 1898 Morebattle instead, which has enabled me to extend the English branch a little. Her brother Robert was a Police Constable at Harbottle, NBL, and later Blyth, or so the will and inventory state, but census records only place him at Holywell and Bedlingon. Web not yet updated.