speleobat2 wrote:Hi Elle,
This is an interesting family! I've been looking for Susanah too with no luck. One possibility might be that she was given to another family to raise and was registered under their name for the census. If you do a first name only search, there are a number of Susanah's in the area but I didn't see a way to link them to the Nicol family. Also, if William died around 1841, the problem may simply have been a lack of money to support the boys so Elizabeth may have sent them to live with their grandmother and kept Janet with her.
Ages and names were transcribed many ways on the census. My 3x great grandfather was shown as 65 in 1841 and 46 in 1851. Unfortunately, he died before 1855 so I've never been able to trace him further back. His name was Clerihew and I have a list of over 30 different spellings for it taken from family records and various transcriptions!
Carol
Hi Carol,
It is definitely very interesting (and a bit frustrating!)
I suspect you may be right that William died just before or after Susanah's birth c1839-41 and Elizabeth just didn't have the means any more. If it is them on the 1841 census I wonder if the older Elizabeth Nicol, the grocer, could be William's mother.
I've seen such discrepancies with ages and spellings on census returns as well that I always try to verify them via other sources before adding them to my tree.
I was just looking at James' marriage certificate again - one of the few solid sources I have and very luckily an 1855 cert! I don't think I put this in the initial post but he was a boilermaker and it states that his present residence is 116 Dale Street, Glasgow and his usual residence Coburg Land, Glasgow. I know there is a Coburg St in The Gorbals so that could tally with the family being in The Gorbals too. It also says he was born and registered on 12th July 1832 at Brown Street, Glasgow but I've never found any record of his birth. It may be like Susanah's though and not within Established records. It goes on to say that both his parents are deceased and William was a warper which I've also got from Thomas' birth record and Janet's marriage and death records. The witnesses at the wedding were Thomas Brown and Bryce Crosbie but I don't see any family connection with them.
Anyway thanks again for the help and I'll keep looking!
Elle