@ The Allison Children

[garydevine1995]

i am finding it quite hard to find all the allison children born by walter allison and margaret mcfarlane. heres some info on the parents:

walter allison was born in 1854 and so was margaret they got married on march 27th 1874 in glasgow
he died in 1916 glasgow and she died in 1917 glasgow, so far i have about 7 children but my gran said there was about 12/13 of them but a few died young.

so far:
Margaret Allison 1877
Andrew Allison 1881
Walter Allison 1883
James Allison 1889
Peter Allison 1889
Robert Allison 1891
Alexander Allison 1895

on the 1911 census it says they have had 11 children born alive and only 6 were still living. margaret and walter arent down on the 1911 census with the family but i no margaret did live cause she married and had a child but i dotn no where walter is. so could some one help me find the rest of the children. oh and between 1901-1911 no other children are down so i would think maybe a few died inbetween then.

[AnneM]

Hi Gary

You have found 7 children so there is only 4 more to find. This is not easy as they may well have been born and died between census dates. I still have not found one of my great grandmother's children who died in infancy. The only way I found the one I did find was to sit in New Register House and plough my way systematically through all the children with the surname Kerr who died young in the likely years.

I think that is the only way you will find your missing Allisons.

To some extent you have an easier task because Allison is a less common name but I was pretty sure my great aunts or uncles died as babies so had a smaller age group to search.

Have you checked to see if any of the boys died in WWI

Anne

P.S. Look for the gaps of more than a couple of years between births as there is likely to have been a pregnancy in between. Also check out the years before the first child you know of was born.

[AnneM]

Just as a wee treat I've found you one:

William Allison born 24th September 1875 at 124 Caledonia Road, Glasgow died aged 5 minutes son of Walter and Margaret m.s. McFarlane, cause of death difficult parturition; Informant Walter Allison, father.

Poor Margaret a difficult childbirth resulting in a baby who lived only 5 minutes. Its amazing she had another 9 or 10 but there was not much option in those days!!

Anne

How to do it. Looking at the date of marriage and the date of the first child you have, it is a fair bet that there was at least one child born between the marriage and young Margaret. This child is not on the 1881 census so is likely to have died before then. Search for Allison deaths between 1873 and 1881 in Glasgow with a date of birth 1875 plus or minus 2 gives a manageable number. Your family seem reasonably fixed in Hutchesontown and there is a baby William (a family name) dies there at the right time so it's worth a punt on.

[garydevine1995]

yes james allison died during WWI in france in 1915 or 16 but i dotn have his death cert. i have a list of children between 1901-1911 that have died i huchesontown where they stayed :

berthia 0 1904
jane 3 1904
william 0 1906
walter 0 1903
james 2 1906
susan 0 1903

they moved to govanhill as thats where they are in the 1911 census but there are no infact deaths for 1901-1911

[garydevine1995]

wow thank you walters dad was called william so it works thank you very much

[AnneM]

Since we're on a roll here and still sorry for Margaret I'll tell you that they also lost another William aged 9 months and a wee Helen aged 2 within 2 days of each other on 30th March and 1st April 1888 to Whooping Cough.

Life was very hard even for a family where father had a reasonably good job and was literate like your Walter.

Anne

[garydevine1995]

god thats incrediable what a tough life well by 1911 they were both 56 so by 1905 i think they would have stopped.

so they lost a william in 1875
another william and helen in 1888 within 2 days :O wow

means theres another one left wonder when he/she died then oh what about walter he isnt there in 1911 and it syas only 6 are still alive but in 1901 there was 7 alive or it could be another one

i feel really sorry for margaret cant believe she still went on to have more children

[AnneM]

Found the last one. John died aged 15 months 26th April 1880. I think that's your lot. It would have been better to make you look for them yourself but if you get the technique for finding them you can do the same operation for another family. Same system applies. Look at the birth years, spot the gaps and go for those.

You had a couple of things in your favour

1. Allison is not the most common name
2. The family stayed in the same area

I have never looked for records in Glasgow as Edinburgh is more convenient for me but I read on one of the other threads that all the Glasgow records have been gathered in the one place so you will be able to look for poor law records and also all the birth certificates of the children in the same place if you want. I would guess that someone would help you find your way around initially as long as you make it clear you're there to do it yourself and not expecting them to look for everything for you, which I'm sure you're not!!

Anne

[garydevine1995]

god your amaizng hahaha thank you so much my gran will be amazed. so it goes as:

William 1875
Margaret 1877
John 1880
Andrew 1881
Walter 1883
William 1887
Helen 1888
James 1889
Peter 1889
Robert 1891
Alexander 1895

i cant tell you how much i am greatfull for this uhkk there are literally no words but thank you so much for this

[AnneM]

John was born around 1878. He died in 1880. Equally Helen will have been born around 1886.

One thing I have learned in this game is to be careful about my data and record them accurately. This does not come naturally as I have a tendency to have a butterfly brain and be slap dash but that is the road to disaster in family history.

Anne