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Scottish/Borders surname query

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  • Scottish/Borders surname query

    A contact very kindly sent me a transcript of the death cert of my 4 x GGM.

    Her maiden name is written as SMEAKIN on the cert.

    On her gravestone it is written SMEECHM.

    I have trawled Ancestry and the IGI - not a single incidence of either name or anything like it. I did think Meachim or Meakins as I found just TWO in Berwick (where she was born, about 1775).

    Can anyone please suggest a possible name, hopefully based on knowledge of Berwick/Northumberland names?

    OC

  • #2
    Had a word with Mrs G (she is a Borders girl).......she suggests possibly Smeaton (the name is still in the borders area), the Meakin name is still found in and around Berwick.

    One i thought of was Smeecham/Smeacham or something similiar.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/50125734@N06/

    Joseph Goulson 1701-1780
    My sledging hammer lies declined, my bellows too have lost their wind
    My fire's extinct, my forge decay'd, and in the dust my vice is laid

    Comment


    • #3
      Glen

      Yes, tried Smeaton, sorry, should have said.....no joy.

      This family just appeared on earth, had one child and vanished for ever, it looks like!

      In 1871, her daughter, who always says she too was born in Berwick, gives INCEA, Berwick as p.o.b.

      Allowing for Scottish Ancestry's imaginative transcriptions, where might THAT be?! (I don't have any credits at the mo on SP to look at the image)

      OC

      Comment


      • #4
        There is an Inch in Wigtownshire - is that near?
        Jean



        To forget your ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root....

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by jean View Post
          There is an Inch in Wigtownshire - is that near?
          Sorry Jean, it's miles away, nearly on the west coast. OH has rellies from that area.

          I would have guessed Smeaton too.

          And Google map gives no clues to INCEA.
          Last edited by Uncle John; 08-07-08, 23:04.
          Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

          Comment


          • #6
            No don't think it is:(
            Jean



            To forget your ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root....

            Comment


            • #7
              genuki shows Inch Moor and Inchkeith - berwickshire
              GENUKI: Berwickshire Gazetteer: I
              Jean



              To forget your ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root....

              Comment


              • #8
                The area is so sparsely populated (apart from sheep) that it might be the name of a farm.
                Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

                Comment


                • #9
                  Doesn't the daughter's birth entry in the OPR's give a version of her mother's surname too? (I'm guessing she - the daughter - is Isabella Forbes on the 1871?)
                  KiteRunner

                  Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good... laugh"
                  (Indigo Girls, "Watershed")

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    UJ

                    I don't have that kind of luck, lol! Narrowing it down to a farm, I mean.

                    Daddy was a boat builder, so probably a coastal area, I should think. I do hope it isn't Ancestry's stab at "at sea".

                    It's no good, I'm going to have to whack the plastic, I can't bear not knowing.

                    I also wonder if the surname could have been Smeecombe. Not that that helps, there aren't any of those, either.

                    OC

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Oh, just realised, you need the name of the place to find the OPR entry! Doh!
                      KiteRunner

                      Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good... laugh"
                      (Indigo Girls, "Watershed")

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Oh, and if the daughter died in Scotland then her death certificate should also say what her mother's maiden name was.
                        KiteRunner

                        Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good... laugh"
                        (Indigo Girls, "Watershed")

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Kate

                          No, I cannot trace any of the baptisms of the children of John Nisbet and Helen Smeakin.

                          They had (from Helen's death cert - she died in 1855, so wonderfully informative)

                          4 daughters, Isabella aged 54, Margaret aged 50, Helen died 1807 aged 11 and Helen aged 48.

                          The death cert goes on to say Helen (Smeakin) was born in Berwick but lived 49 years in Nigg, widow of John Nisbet, Overseer Salmon Fishing.

                          (Note - Margaret is NOT the one baptised in Berwick in 1806, daughter of James Nisbet and Margaret Thompson - I've been down that wrong alley already!)

                          OC

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            With the references to fishing and wrong alleys, I get a picture of OC as Molly Malone. (sorry!)
                            Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              LOL, UJ!

                              My mother used to sing Molly Malone to me in a very soulful voice which always reduced me to floods of tears!

                              Bit like the present scenario.....

                              OC

                              Comment


                              • #16
                                I haven't got it with me but there is a little nugget of a book in my truck, loads of farms listed, i'll have a look tonight when i'm parked up.

                                A lot of the border area names remain in the area, lot's of them are similiar to the farm/village names.

                                I might be back tomorrow or maybe Friday, it depends on work but i'll have a look and see what i can find out.
                                http://www.flickr.com/photos/50125734@N06/

                                Joseph Goulson 1701-1780
                                My sledging hammer lies declined, my bellows too have lost their wind
                                My fire's extinct, my forge decay'd, and in the dust my vice is laid

                                Comment


                                • #17
                                  OC, when you say Berwick I assume you mean Berwick upon Tweed?

                                  Comment


                                  • #18
                                    my daughter married a meakin and they lived in stafford.brenda xxx

                                    Comment


                                    • #19
                                      Keptin

                                      In census order, this is where Isabella says she was born:

                                      1841 No
                                      1851 Nigg, Kincards (they were living in Nigg though)
                                      1861 Berwick, England
                                      1871 Incea(???) Berwicks.
                                      1881 Berwick on Tweed
                                      1891 Berwick

                                      Isabella's mother Helen nee Smeakin, was living with her in 1851 and she says born Berwick. Isabella's sister Margaret also consistently says Berwick, or Berwick on Tweed.

                                      OC

                                      Comment


                                      • #20
                                        you've got mail OC.

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