McNeil/Thomson of Greenock

[bk313]

Hello all,

I am looking for information regarding my great grand parents. I can't really find much about them because they were born just before the 1911 census. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My great grandmother was Henrietta Thomson born October 24, 1907 in Greenock and died in 1992 when she lived at 26 Whinhill Court in Greenock. She had a brother named Donald.

My great grandfather was Andrew McNeil born in Greenock July 26, 1904, and died in Bridge of Weir on 26th January 1955.

They had 7 children, James, Angus, Isabel, Agnes, Andrew, Donald and Etta (my grandmother).

Thank you for your time.

[SarahND]

Hello bk313 and welcome to Talking Scot

Just few more months and the 1911 census will be available online! If you have not already done so, you can download your great grandparents' birth certificates from ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk, which should give you their parents' names, addresses and occupations.

If they married by 1934 you could also download the marriage certificate and see where they were living then and what their occupations were. Also whether their parents were still living at that time.

Your great grandfather's death certificate is also freely available, since he died before 1959.

More recent records, that could mention living or recently deceased persons, should not be discussed on the pubic forum (See Essential Reading: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6601 )

Let us know if you have any trouble finding the certificates. With the information you find, you should be able to go backwards with their families in the censuses. Other information might be found in newspapers, military records, etc., but without knowing the occupation and birth dates of your great great grandparents it will be hard to narrow down on the correct people.

All the best,
Sarah

[speleobat2]

Hi all,

Things are pretty quiet here this morning so I got Henrietta and Andrew's marriage cert and bk313 is going to need help reading it. It's pretty faint in places. Looks like Henrietta's full name was Henrietta McDougal Thomson. Her father was Angus Thomson and her mother was Agnes Belk, Pelk ??? That's one of the hard to read places!

Andrew McNeil was a journeyman engineer. His parents were James McNeil, shipwright, and Isabella McPhail.

The marriage took place December 9, 1927.

I'm out of the house for today so best of luck with this one!

Carol

Edit later: Henrietta's mother's maiden name was Bell. Angus Thomson was a bootmaker at the time of the wedding.

[SarahND]

Hi Carol,
To carry on from your information:

From playing around with the search on Scotland's People it looks like:

James NcNeil and Isabella McPhail were married in Gourock in 1904
Angus Thomson and Agnes Bell were married in Greenock in 1904

There is an Angus Thomson, Boot Maker, in Greenock West in 1901. He is 42, married to Sarah and has a stepson 17 and a stepdaughter 12. Both children are called Thomson, but have the middle name Orr, so that is perhaps Sarah's first husband's name. She may have died between 1901 and 1904 and Angus married second Agnes Bell.

There appears to be a Sarah Thomson who died in Cathcart in 1904, but she is too young to be the same one.

All the best,
Sarah

[speleobat2]

Sarah,

I think you have the right one for Angus. I'm doing lookups in between cleaning up branches from a dead tree my husband cut down this morning so I'm not real organized here! I did also get the marriage cert for Angus Thomson and Agnes Bell, 1904, Greenock.

Angus Thomson, 46, master shoemaker, was a widower and his parents were Donald Thomson, farmer and Elizabeth McAllister, both living. Agnes Bell's parents were John Clark Bell, plumber, deceased and Henrietta Munro McDougall, living. Agnes was a domestic servant and 38 years old when they married.

Agnes' parents and siblings are on the 1891 census in Greenock. There are seven children in all so lots of relatives to look for!

Carol

[SarahND]

Hi Carol,
And I thought I was the only one crazy enough to alternate genealogy lookups with manual labor!

Angus Thomson married Sarah Orr in Greenock in 1895

I believe her two children that were stepchildren in 1901 were illegitimate, since Orr was her maiden name and there is never any sign of a husband before Angus.

Sarah Thomson other surname Orr died in Kilbride, Argyll in 1903, age 48
This makes more sense when you go back in her family and find that her family was all from Argyll and she was the first child to be born in Greenock. So she perhaps died while home on a visit?

As I'm sure you've noticed if you've been looking at the censuses, Angus and family were also from Argyll.


Sarah

[speleobat2]

Sarah,

When my husband headed out with the chainsaw I figured that I could either hide in the house or go along and keep an eye on him!

I only took a quick look at the census records. There must be 20 James McNeils in Renfrewshire so I went back to SP and got the marriage cert for James McNeil and Isabella McPhail.

James's parents were Andrew McNeil, Rigger, and Christian Wallace, both alive. Isabella's parents were James McPhail, labourer, and Isabella Quin--I think. Her maiden name is a little hard to read and she was deceased at the time of the marriage.

Time to find something to eat around here!

Carol

[SarahND]

Hi Carol,
Don't leave your husband unsupervised with the chain saw! I have ended up being chain saw woman in this family because my husband is Just. Not. Careful. Enough. Those saws are scary

Good, I thought James was going to be the son of Andrew and Christian, after poking around in the censuses for a bit. Isabella, I was having trouble finding, but will look again with the additional information.

Bon appétit!
Sarah

[speleobat2]

Hi again,

Christian's name on the cert is actually Christina as it shows on the census records.

McPhails have me stumped for now. I'm thinking that James remarried so Isabella Quin McPhail doesn't show on the census records?

Carol

[bk313]

OH MY GOD. You guys are fantastic. This was the easiest I have ever increased my family knowledge. THANK YOU! I should have came here a long time ago! This was the last side of all my family research and I was having trouble with it. My GGM was Henrietta Bell Thomson. The family tradition on that side is the maiden name of the mother becomes the middle name of the first daughter. My mother broke that tradition

I was pretty sure Angus Thomson was my GGM's father, but I couldn't confirm it. I had found birth announcements on the archives of the Greenock Telegraph. I think I was having trouble with a lot of it because the names seem so common in Scotland (first and surnames).

A couple of questions:

How far back could I get using online resources?

Is there a way to save online documents?

Again thank you so much, I can't tell you how excited I am. My mother is going to be ecstatic. We lost her mother at a young age, so we missed out on a lot. Greatly appreciated.

BK

(edit: Additionally, is there a free resource available for these documents? It seems Scotlandspeople is a pay site, which very well be worth it. I'd like to get dates and other relatives too and that would take up a lot of "credits" on scotlandspeople. Thank you again.)