Could it be right ???

[garydevine1995]

i have come across my 7xg grandfather and his name is aeneas in 1768 but when i look for a birth cert there is none but there is an angus in comrie,perth. now because of the difficult times back then with bonnnie prince charile and the redcoats is it possible he changed his name from angus to aeneas because of what was happening. he was married in 1752 to flora camron and he is still aeneas. on the angus birth cert on family search his parents are john sinclair and janet murray. so could he have changed his name to aeneas ??

[AnneM]

Hi Gary

It seemed to me that the names might be interchangeable and a google suggests that that is the case. However the mere presence of someone of that name does not necessarily mean that that is the right person. You have to remember that many children were not baptised or their baptisms recorded and also that some registers have not survived. Why do you think that this is your Aeneas/Angus?

Anne

BTW You have got a lot of branches going at the same time here. I hope you have a good system to keep track of all your records and sources and make sure that you have good evidence for every step you take. Sometimes rather than dashing on it is a good idea to take some time to consolidate and review the information you have before searching further. Most of us on here have been searching for years and the searching is as much fun as the finding!!

[garydevine1995]

the reason i think is because on his son birth cert it says aeneas sinclair and me and a relative were talking about it and he mentioned he was a solider so he thought he had changed his name from angus to aeneas as we found an angus which fit in with the place he lived in at the time and we couldnt find a birth cert for aeneas so he came up with that he changed his name from angus to aeneas because of the war that was going with the redcoats. you could contact sinclair46 as he will tell you the full thing but both of us thought perhaps thats what happened we just needed a second opinion but if you contact him he should tell you the story.

[AnneM]

Hi Gary

I have no problem with the concept that someone who was noted as Aeneas on records was originally baptized as Angus. According to one website Aeneas is Latin for Angus, which I found a bit surprising as I always thought Aeneas was a Greek name!! I have Davids who are also Daniels and Peters who are also Patrick.

I also accept that there may well be an Angus Sinclair born at about the right time and in roughly the right place. My point was that it is well nigh impossible to be sure that it is 'your' Angus/Aeneas the father of your 6 x great grandfather as Sinclair is not an uncommon name and there could well have been more than one family of Sinclairs using the name in that location. There were a limited number of christian names in use then.....no Brooklyns, Chareyses, Jades or Jaydens in those days.

It is of course possible maybe even verging on the likely that the Angus the son of John Sinclair and Janet Murray is the same person who later fathered your 6x great grandad but without other evidence that the Aeneas/Angus who married Flora is the Angus born in Comrie you can't put it higher than that. Have you looked at the names of Aeneas and Flora's children to see if there are any clues from the naming pattern or do you have some other evidence that Aeneas's father was John? Does it give the name of Aeneas's father on his marriage certificate? What evidence do you have of Aeneas's age as he is well before census dates?

If he appears as a soldier on his marriage or the birth of one of his children he is likely to have been in the government army and not a Jacobite.

Anne

[AnneM]

I'm a bit confused here. From looking at other posts it seems that your 6 x great grandfather was Mungo Sinclair born 1768 but he seems to be the son of Aeneas and Janet Brown. That Aeneas seems to have had children by Janet Buchanan and Janet Brown but no mention of by Flora Camron. It seems to me unlikely that the Aeneas, the soldier, that married Flora in Perth was the same Aeneas that had the children in Monzievaird and Strowan, though it is possible.

Do you have some other reason for thinking that he is the same man?

Anne

[AnneM]

Hi again Gary. I take it that the death certificate of Peter showed his parents as Mungo Sinclair and Helen Riddoch. This gives you the Mungo who died in 1883 whose parents are Mungo Sinclair and Margaret McLauchlan. I'm clear about that but how do you get from that to the Aeneas/Angus? Do you have a death for Mungo married to Margaret?

Anne

Got it! From looking at your post on Mungo Sinclair I see you have identified him by age and location of birth but as Sarah says that is not conclusive... just possible or at most likely.

[AnneM]

By the way Gary, don't get disheartened by the difficulty of identifying someone before censuses and statutory registration. Everyone has the same problems and most of us are guilty of a little wishful thinking at times. Once you get to Edinburgh you could look through all the deaths of Mungo Sinclairs at least to eliminate those who are not yours but who survived until 1855 which yours does not seem to have done.

Have you checked for other sources like wills etc. I had a look to see if there was anything about Aeneas Sinclair the soldier on the National Archives catalogue but at first glance can't see anything. That does not mean there is nothing there but it's not obvious.

To have got back with certainty to people born in the mid 18th Century is very good and anything else would be a real bonus. Some people once they get there like to try to get a feel for the community their ancestors lived in and how they lived.

Scrolling through the parish records in Edinburgh is a great way to get a flavour of the families in the community at the time you are researching. After a while you feel as if you know them.

Sometimes to test myself to see if I have the right person I put them 'on trial' in my mind and ask something like "If you are charged with being Gary's 6 x great grandfather, would you be found guilty?" but again that's just the way my mind works and everyone has their own way of thinking about it.

Good luck

Anne

[garydevine1995]

I'm a bit confused here. From looking at other posts it seems that your 6 x great grandfather was Mungo Sinclair born 1768 but he seems to be the son of Aeneas and Janet Brown. That Aeneas seems to have had children by Janet Buchanan and Janet Brown but no mention of by Flora Camron. It seems to me unlikely that the Aeneas, the soldier, that married Flora in Perth was the same Aeneas that had the children in Monzievaird and Strowan, though it is possible.

Do you have some other reason for thinking that he is the same man

see me and john (the relatives name lol) came up with that he had affairs, i looked at the children for him and only 4 came up with but with no flora camron.

yes mungo is my 6x g greatfather and it was his birth cert that got me into thinking it. on familysearch there are 3 mungos in perth. one in the 1760's and the other two in the 1780's but it was impossible for mungo to have been born in the 1780's as his son mungo was born in 1798. so i just took it that the mungo i was looking for was born in 1768 and his dad was called aeneas and his mother janet brown.

me and john were disscussing it and it seemed aeneas had 2 children before mungo with janet buchanan and a first child with janet brown but none with flora but we found a marriage for aeneas and flora for 1752 in comrie where all the children were born and i found it to weird that maybe there was,at the time, 3 aeneas sinclairs in comrie within 1752-1768, he had a child in like 1758 then in 1761 then in 1765 and then mungo in 1768.

i havent managed to find a death cert for him or even a birth cert for him and thats when we found an angus sinclair born 1723 to a john sinclair and jannet murray in comrie so we just took it that he changed his name because of the war that was going on and because he was in the army. there are angus's that have died in perth between 1768-1800 and 1 death for a john sinclair in 1772.

so to be honest we are not 100% on angus-aeneas but we just needed other people to help us with the name change. but if you are confused or anything please do tell me and is there any possivle way to see when he signed up for the army back then or are the records all gone ?

[sinclair46]

Hi Gary

I have no problem with the concept that someone who was noted as Aeneas on records was originally baptized as Angus. According to one website Aeneas is Latin for Angus, which I found a bit surprising as I always thought Aeneas was a Greek name!! I have Davids who are also Daniels and Peters who are also Patrick.

I also accept that there may well be an Angus Sinclair born at about the right time and in roughly the right place. My point was that it is well nigh impossible to be sure that it is 'your' Angus/Aeneas the father of your 6 x great grandfather as Sinclair is not an uncommon name and there could well have been more than one family of Sinclairs using the name in that location. There were a limited number of christian names in use then.....no Brooklyns, Chareyses, Jades or Jaydens in those days.

It is of course possible maybe even verging on the likely that the Angus the son of John Sinclair and Janet Murray is the same person who later fathered your 6x great grandad but without other evidence that the Aeneas/Angus who married Flora is the Angus born in Comrie you can't put it higher than that. Have you looked at the names of Aeneas and Flora's children to see if there are any clues from the naming pattern or do you have some other evidence that Aeneas's father was John? Does it give the name of Aeneas's father on his marriage certificate? What evidence do you have of Aeneas's age as he is well before census dates?

If he appears as a soldier on his marriage or the birth of one of his children he is likely to have been in the government army and not a Jacobite.

Anne

hi ann thank you for your time with gary i found on a website called strathearn 45 and in it it explains about the recruiting of volenteers for the jacobite cause and at the end of it it named some men from comrie and one of the men was a Aeneas Sinclair who was pressed by the rebels at home it also says it was a partial listing taken some one hundredand fifty years afterthe finale at culloden and that two hundred marched away very few returning.Mungo was one of Aeneas children which follows our line right to the present day ,someone did say to me that a lot of jacobites did change there name as to avoid being caught thought he may have changed it once he was back in comrie thanks sinclair

[AnneM]

Hi again chaps

Just one final look at this. Firstly I'm fairly sure that the same Aeneas had the children with the two Janets. The place where he is given as living is the same on all the records as far as I can see, (though at a pinch the fathers could be cousins or uncle and nephew.) It looks like Fernie or Fernice.

He certainly fathered a Mungo and there is a possibility that that Mungo is your ancestor. However, that child could have died with days of birth for all you or I know.

Now, as far as I can see the marriage of Aeneas the soldier and Flora Camron is recorded in Perth not Comrie and the children of the Aeneas and Janets were baptised in Monzievaird and Strowan. He could be the same man but there is absolutely no evidence that he is. He could just as likely have been a soldier quartered at Perth who came from somewhere different and marched off again within the next while never to be seen in Perthshire again. That or Flora's or Aeneas's early death could account for a lack of children recorded for that marriage.

If you are content that the source you have for the people pressed in to the rebel army is reliable then it is likely that that Aeneas was a relative of yours but there is nothing at present to identify him as a direct ancestor. Does the source say whether that Aeneas was among those who survived the rebellion? I don't think the name change holds water as Angus and Aeneas are basically the same name so it would not make sense to change your name to one which is its equivalent. The evidence to link all these people together may be out there somewhere but it's not clear that you have it yet.

Certainly once you are dealing with very common names like Janet Brown and Janet Murray there is absolutely no way you can be sure you have the right one. Brown is the most common name in Scotland and the place was hoaching with Janets in the C18.

Have you tried to find out if there are any monumental inscriptions for the places you are interested in? They often provide family links. The local family history society would be a good resource to find that out.

Only you can decide whether you are satisfied with the evidence you have and it is certainly tempting to go for the good story. I'm a great fan of good stories myself. However the painful truth is that we all often have to choose between an extensive family tree and one that is researched and sourced accurately to the best of our ability. Your call chaps.

Anne

P.S. If there are any surviving records for Aeneas the soldier they are likely to be in the National Archives in Kew. I had a quick search of the catalogue but did not see an Aeneas or even an Angus, though there were a few Sinclairs born in Perthshire. I did not have time to trawl through all the records but the earliest I saw was 1777 so whether there any earlier records available someone more experienced in military history may well be able to tell you.