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Scottish family saved from Ancestry

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  • Scottish family saved from Ancestry

    I've been sorting one of my Scottish sidelines using Ancestry. The husband Hugh (a Free Church minister) came from Ardersier, Inverness-shire and his wife Isabella (my rellie) came from Ayrshire. In 1881 she, unmarried, is at her father's manse (yes another minister). By 1891 they are married and staying at a Temperance hotel in London and in 1901 they are at his manse in Kilmarnock with "their" 26-year-old daughter Margaret.

    These two census entries gave me his first name (I already had his surname).
    So, in 1881 I found Hugh and Isabella at his previous manse in Collessie, Fife, with a brood of children all born there including the above-mentioned Margaret. But Isabella is also from Ardersier, so clearly she died at some point and he married "my" Isabella.

    So where are all these kids in 1891? At the manse in Kilmarnock being looked after by "my" Isabella's unmarried sister. The Ancestry transcriber was so overcome by finding a family with no Head (the eldest boy is described as Son and auntie as Visitor) that they combined them with the family next door. Fortunately they transcribed the address accurately for each person.

    So it is possible to manage without ScotlandsPeople if you are lucky. Collessie didn't get mangled, though it is in Cafeshire on one census. But Ardersier had one or two odd spellings.
    Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

  • #2
    UPDATE: It looks as if the happy couple were on their honeymoon on census night 1891. By a process of elimination on SP I found the year of death of the first Isabella (looks as if she may have died in childbirth with no. 7) and the second marriage in 1891.

    I remember Southampton Row in the 1960s to 80s. I wonder what it was like in 1891 and can't you imagine the excitement of honeymooning in a temperance hotel!
    Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

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    • #3
      UJ

      I do think it should be illegal, retrospectively if necessary, for widowers to marry a woman with the same name as their first wife!

      I have wandered down many a puzzling wrong alley, due to this heinous habit.

      OC

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      • #4
        Uncle John - I give thanks almost daily for the fact that Ancestry has the transcriptions of the Scottish census. Apart from the fact that they can't show the images, my biggest disappointment is the fact that there isn't an easy way, after 1851, to see "others on page". With common names, it would be really handy to be able to see, at a glance, if in-laws, married sisters etc are near neighbours.
        Gillian
        User page: http://www.familytreeforum.com/wiki/...ustGillian-117

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        • #5
          OC

          "Deceased wife's namesake" as well as "deceased wife's sister" then.
          Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

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          • #6
            I hope you don't mind my poking my nose in on your thread, UJ and OC but I felt so sorry for isabella 2 --not just the Temperance Hotel but the thought of all the stepkids at home waiting to be slaved over. Plus the possibility of going the same way as Isabella 1 before too long...
            I expect the guys think it'll save them having to think too hard about who to ask for more toast from behind the morning Times . (I hope she remembered to iron it first)
            Saves getting new monograms done on the towels and dressing table set too
            Janexxx
            To boldly go where no genealogist has gone before....

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            • #7
              Jane

              Believe it or not, I actually saw the following explanation on a rather worthy genealogical site (which I no longer visit, lol)

              "Men chose as second wives, women of the same first name. This would avoid the embarrassment of calling out the wrong name in moments of passion"

              OC

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              • #8
                OC - I had had precisely that speculation!

                Christine
                Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

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                • #9
                  LOL, OC, that's what I would have thought if it hadn't been for the Temperance hotel....
                  To boldly go where no genealogist has gone before....

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    The happy couple had probably been acquainted, if not friends, for many years, through the Free Church ministerial connection. I'm sure Isabella's father was overjoyed to get her married off at the ripe old age of 38.

                    I don't know what the approved reading was in such households. Perhaps The Scotsman was verboten.
                    Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

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