Scottish/Borders surname query

[Olde Crone Holden]

thanks Keptin, received and replied - I've been on the phone for two hours, lol.

OC

[Olde Crone Holden]

Glen

Sorry, I forgot to thank you earlier!

OC

[Uncle John]

Come on OC, enlighten us!

[Glen in Tinsel Knickers]

I'm beginning to think it is an ancestry stab "at sea".

If it is a coastal place then it is long gone and there are no farms that i can see on my old and new county map, Berwick had a thriving fishing fleet but the major boatbuilding only started in the late 1860's, prior to that it was mostly the smaller fishing boats and smaller craft that were used on the Tweed.

Spittal, Tweedmouth and Ord are the places that have now been "merged" into Berwick. Shorehouses, Seahouses and Beach Houses were rows of buildings in Spittal right on the sea front, now long since gone.

Seahouses (or Newton Seahouses) is a coastal village some distance to the south.


Just to add a bit about local names, Nisbet and Thomson/Thompson are both reasonably common, though Nisbet is more from the Duns (Berwickshire) area and often mistranscribes as Nesbit.

Apart from that i can't think of much to add at the mo.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Thankyou so much for doing that, Glen, I really appreciate it.

It is also slowly dawning on me that although HELEN may have been born in Berwick, her parents weren't necessarily born there, or even married there.

I wonder if Smeakin/Smeekm could be the rendering of a foreign name? This family loved the sea and flitted about all over the world in boats of one sort or another. Maybe Mr Smeakin was from foreign parts, as they say.

(Tell me about the Nisbett/Nesbitt spelling...the name still exists in my living family today and they aren't sure how to spell it either!)

Off to google to see if there is a Berwick family history society......

OC

[Glen in Tinsel Knickers]

Northumberland FHS
Northumberland and Durham Family History Society

The archives held at Berwick also cover some of the Scotland records for the towns/villages along the border, Linda Bankier is the archivist at Berwick. Googling the Berwick Archives isn't a great success and i can't find her e-mail addy at the mo but it might be worth trying to contact Linda, as well as the archivist she is heavily involved with the history society and really knows her stuff.

[KiteRunner]

Have you got death certificates for any or all of the daughters who died in Scotland, to see what the renditions of Helen's surname are on those?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Kate

No, can't do it till tomorrow - financial embarrassment!

Glen

Thankyou! Perhaps Ill give Berwick Library a ring tomorrow, see if they have a contact addy for her.

OC

[WendyP]

HI OC


with regards to the Death cert for Isabella Forbes nee Nisbet I can help out so please PM with you e-addy for details before splashing out.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Thankyou Wendy, I have sent you a pm! But what does Isabella's mother's maiden name look like to you?

OC

[Keptin Thedark]

OOh can I play? I have a few creds on SP, let me have a look!

[Olde Crone Holden]

Oh, I am making a bit of progress - slow but hopefully in the right direction!

Phoenix remarked the other day how you search for hours and can't find a thing. Next day you look again and there they were all the time....

Well, decided to have another look for Helen Nisbett, sister of Isabella, and daughter of Heln Smeakins. I couldn't find a thing last time I looked.

Found her marriage to John Dawson, checked on the census and it IS the right Helen, but she is called Eleanor (41 and 51) and she says she is born Nigg (41 and 51). John Dawson says both times he was born in Berwick.....

(By 1851 there is a grandchild, called Not Known, and in the occupation column it says spitefully "not baptised", lol).

I am certain this is Helen as their address is Nisbets Close, Torry, and Nisbets Close is mentioned in connection with the farm on which Isabella Forbes and her family lived.

Right - off again to find Helen/Eleanor baptised in Nigg. Watch this space....

OC

[KiteRunner]

Oh, good. Presumably the Close was named after the family, then. The "not baptised" might not be spiteful so much as just being an explanation of why the baby didn't have a name yet?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Hmmmmmm!!!

I have now downloaded all three death certs of Helen Smeakins daughters. They all say, very clearly, SMEAKIN, for mother's maiden name.

Oh, and the mystery place of birth in 1871? Oncea?

Ancestry, you fools -it says BERWICK ON TWEED.

One curious little thing - Helen, the daughter of Helen Smeakin, consistently comes up, on every census, as ELENDER, and her death is registered as Elender.

Her husband, John Dawson, was born in Berwick (Helen wasn't, she was born in Nigg, no bap found). Scottish Ancestry 1871 gives his place of birth as On Talld, which turns out to be, guess what, folks.

OC

[KiteRunner]

Well, that's obvious, isn't it?!

Elender... hmmm, she wouldn't be related to the Allenders, would she?

[Keptin Thedark]

So where did Elender Smeakin and John Dawson marry then?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Keptin

No, it was Helen Nisbet who married John Dawson, on 11th July 1929 at Nigg.

Helen/Elender Nisbet being the daughter of John Nisbet and HelenSmeakin.

OC

[Keptin Thedark]

doh....

so, where did they marry?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Keptin

Erm, who?

I cannot find a marriage for John Nisbet to Helen Smeakin. I have searched all years, but I would imagine it was around 1796 as first child (Helen, died 1807) born then.

I have also tried John Nisbet to anybody-in-Berwick, but again no joy.

A mystery!

OC

[Glen in Tinsel Knickers]

Now sits and waits to discover which of the church(es) in the area i'm going to fall over one of the headstones.

BTW OC


Berwick-upon-Tweed Record Office,
Council Offices,
Wallace Green ,
Berwick-upon-Tweed,
Northumberland
TD15 1ED

01289 301865

Monday and Tuesday Closed
Wednesday 9.30-1, 2-5.
Thursday 9.30-1, 2-5.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday Closed

Not really relevant but i just stumbled across this and it might be worth making a note of for future reference is a pdf document listing the parish for each farm during the 1860's

http://pscm.northumberland.gov.uk/pls/portal92/docs/11802