George Gibb - Anyone up for a challenge?.....

[Jockbird]

I have plunged new depths

I noticed that GMTV were doing their webchat with that expert Anthony someone or other today. As I knew it would be close to the school run time I submitted my enquiry to him via email....he wisnae up fer it! Pah...experts.

So my good people, in the light of all this WDYTYA & GMTV making it look pimps, I thought I'd come to the people who really know where to look & what to do.

My Gx2 (and Alienore's a.k.a Deborah on here) grandfather was called George Gibb.

The only concrete piece of evidence I have (and I don't think Debs has any extra) is his marriage certificate dated 6/3/1882 which took place in Camlachie in Glasgow to Jessie Cruickshank.

On this document he gives his age as 26, giving him a YOB circa 1855/56. He lists his parents as George Gibb (Lieutenant Royal Navy) and his mother as Margaret (M.S. Smith). He is living in Tylefield Street at this time as a Letter Press Printer. Jessie is a Paper Bag Maker from Woodside, Old Machar, Aberdeen but also residing in Tylefield Street, Camlachie.

In the 1881 census I have found an entry for a George Gibb which gives him the right age, occupation and puts him in the right place for meeting Jessie as he's living with a load of paper bag makers called GALL in Mugiemoss, Newhills, Aberdeen. His entry reads as follows:-

George GIBB U 25 M England
Rel: Boarder
Occ: Printer

Great, so I'm potentially looking at south of the border for a birth, I hotfoot it onto 1837 and Ancestry....only one for 1855 born in Kent...no good as find him living with his family in Kent in 1861...so not mine.

Ok, I can hear you asking "why's she not got the DC".....well, here's where there is a problem. Family history has it that George, having fathered two girls in 1882 & 1884 goes south to look for work, dies whilst away and Jessie remarries in 1891 to a William Robertson Neave, by declaration in George Street Glasgow. Jessie is described as a widow.

So back we go to the English records looking for George Gibb deaths between January 1894, when my great granny was conceived, to March 1891 when Jessie remarries. There's not many deaths and those that are there don't tie in date wise...or stand out sufficiently to warrant spending £7 on a death cert.

I've got both his daughters birth, marriage & death certs, just in case there is an extra wee snippet of information that might help, you know like an errant initial, a strange witness, informant.....zilch. The only piece of info I got was that he was working in Glasgow when his first daughter Georgina was born, Jessie appears to have gone back to her family to have her and then they are all in Glasgow by the time Isabella is born in 1884.

Did he get his dad's name wrong on the cert? My mum can remember how it was spoken of Isabella's sons following in footsteps as my grandpa became a Printer and his brother was a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy but I just can't find anymore.

Can anyone offer some logical thought on this? You know when you are a wee bit too close to see it. Any ideas willingly received.

Should mention that I've not found a good match on the NAS site for George Snr either but, that said, I'm not very good on that site.

Thanks all for taking the time to read this.

Donna
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[DavidWW]

Hi Donna

You made two mistakes

Firstly, believing that Mr Anthony Adolph is an expert in Scottish records. He isn't, - he's undoubtedly a top expert as far as English records are concerned, but this is the expert who wrote in an article a while ago on British birth records that a "hamfest" was a common practice in Scotland, - aye weel, Scots are renowned the world over as inventors, so maybe there were amateur radio enthusiasts in Scotland in the 18th century and earlier. I presume that he was referring to handfasting, but then it wasn't even that common a practice. There were a number of other quite fundamental errors relating to Scotland.

Your second mistake?, - asking a difficult question The skill in sessions like these, sometimes the necessity, is to answer the straightforward ones, and hope that the difficult ones will fade away.

C'mon, pity the puir laddie, - after GMT this morning he was probably deluged with several thousand emails


Thoughts that occur to me?

Did George Jnr really die before 1891, or was his wife abandoned?, - in other words, once the obvious has been checked in terms of the info available, then it's time to consider other possibilities, such as was he really dead at the time of his wife's second marriage? Sooo...... how about looking in the 1891 and 1901 censuses, and for later matching death records?

And then, what about the 1871 and earlier censuses?

The only other thing that occurs to me at the moment is to check to see is there was a Lieutenant George Gibb RN, - if he existed, he'll appear in the annually published Navy Lists (published from 1780 onwards), - large libraries should have these. If he does exist, then it could well be worth obtaining the service record from TNA at Kew.

And, on thinking about it, I'm unsure whether the various on-line indexes for English BMDs include service records, - i.e. could he have been born abroad? (but believed that he was born in England.)

What intrigues me in this context is how did he end up in Glasgow?, - and it occurs to me that it was far from uncommon for retired naval officers to be recruited into the Revenue Service (Customs & Excise), and it was a very firm condition of employment that Revenue officers went where they were posted !!

I'm assuming that you've searched the Scottish and English BMDs for records relating to his parents.

In a way, this situation is a neat example of the need, when things don't turn out to match the available info, to examine very critically assumptions that have been made, - as, in this case, my very first reaction being to wonder if he really had died before his wife's second marriage.

Orraverybest

David

PS Let's face it, if you were faced with several thousand emails, would you have given yours any priority
dww

PPS It took me 7 years of off and on researching to find my own ggrandfather Webster's death register entry, as, until I challenged the assumptions I made based on other "good" info, - his wife reported herself as a widow in the Montrose year books from 1901 onwards, - so that, until I had challenged my obvious assumption, I didn't find his 1909 death in Dundee..............
dww

[emanday]

Sorry, but need to "snatch" a wee piece of this post.

David, regarding "handfasting".

I remenber hearing a similar expression used by grandparents when referring to a their cousin and her "husband". It was discussed that they had only been handfasted or handclasped (can't remember which), meaning that they had never actually married.

Is this the same meaning that you referred to?

[DavidWW]

Sorry, but need to "snatch" a wee piece of this post.

David, regarding "handfasting".

I remenber hearing a similar expression used by grandparents when referring to a their cousin and her "husband". It was discussed that they had only been handfasted or handclasped (can't remember which), meaning that they had never actually married.

Is this the same meaning that you referred to?

That's the one !

In Scottish terms, handfasting was a provisional marriage. If no pregnancy resulted after a year and a day, the partners were free to split up, and go their way with no further commitment to each other.

Most unusual to come across this later than the 18th century ...........

David

[Jockbird]

Hi David,

Never knew about the handfasting, learn something new every day.

I was desperate, what else can I say, saw old Jenni Falconer in Milngavie (Mulguy) and thought I'd make them think a wee bit. He probably got whiplash at the rate his hand moved to the delete button!

Now it did cross my mind about George Jnr perhaps not dying when he was meant to have. On my errant Millars (or Miller - if you've seen my Poorhouse thread), son of Black Sheep George Miller, Andrew, did, in fact, marry 3 times, however, marriage number 2 was conveniently forgotten by both him and wife when they then went onto marry again.

It made me wonder about the bit where it is "by declaration", that's how my wee bigamist managed it.

Then I felt bad and thought that perhaps this was the truth and maybe when he died no-one knew who he was. I'm really hoping he died in Scotland cos it'll cost a mild fortune getting an English death cert, at least on SP it's just a few credits here & there.

I wasn't aware that the big libraries had RN lists (Debs, if you're reading do you fancy a wee look at a big library in Edinburgh?). I had looked on TNS but didn't find anything but I'm not very accomplished on that site.

What I forgot to say in my earlier thread is that George Snr & Margaret were both dead by the 1882 wedding. I've looked up Margaret Gibb nee Smith on the death certs on SP and the only one was married to an Alexander Gibb, which made me wonder, did he really know his dad's name?

I think a good trawl through both the Scottish & English early census is needed again and, like you say, the later ones too. A few wide margins of error and pinches of salt might be needed.

My credit card is wincing at the thought

I do think we're in this one for the long haul.

All the best
Donna
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[emanday]

Most unusual to come across this later than the 18th century ...........

My grandmother was descended from island stock, David. She used expressions even we had to ask for translations of. The practice might have become extinct, but the terminology seemed to have hung on a bit to her generation.

[DavidWW]

Most unusual to come across this later than the 18th century ...........

My grandmother was descended from island stock, David. She used expressions even we had to ask for translations of. The practice might have become extinct, but the terminology seemed to have hung on a bit to her generation.

Interesting!, - thanks.

David

[isobelc]

Hi Donna,

Can't resist a challenge and hoping I may have come up with a solution for you.

A George Gibb or Smith was born 3rd April 1857 at 6 Marschall? street, St Nicholas, Aberdeen. He was the illegitimate son of George Gibb, Seaman and Eliza Smith, a Domestic Servant. Eliza brought a succesful action for paternity in Feb 1857 shortly before George was born, naming George Gibb as father of the child.

Eliza Smith appears to have died on 19th December 1860, aged 26, from Gangrene of the Stomach. She was living at 69 Broad Street, Aberdeen. Her father was James Smith, Blacksmith (Deceased) and her mother was Jessie Smith nee Carr. The informant was her sister ? Grant (sorry can't make out the first name, might be Maria).Eliza is buried in Spital Cemetery,

In 1861 a four year old George Gibb is living at 69 Broad Street as a Lodger in the household of a Barbara Rait. (Also living there as a lodger is 10 year old Mary Thomson). In the next household is a Jessie Smith aged 61, a midwife, born Aberdeen, who is very possibly Eliza's mother and George's grandmother.

In 1871 George is living as a Boarder with Barbara Raitt at 5 ?? Lane, Aberdeen. Mary Thomson is also still there, aged 20 and now described as Barbara's adopted daughter. George Gibb is 14 and his occupation is Printer.

Not sure where George is in 1881. The one you found certainly sounds like him, but the place of birth is obviously wrong if it is him. As for his mother's name being given as Margaret Smith on hi marriage certificate, this mistake could easily arise given that he was only 3 when she died.

Hope all this makes sense and that this is your George Gibb.

Regards,
Isobel

[Jockbird]

Hi Isobel,

Wow, where did you find that lot out?

Well it certainly is very much worth looking into and there are a few coincidences there that, hopefully, are more than that.

I know for a fact...well as much of a fact in that it's in black and white on his marriage cert....that his mother was dead before 1882. And how many times have we seen the wrong or an extra name thrown in for the parents?

Do you know anymore details of the father, George? He was also 'deceased' at the time of the 1882 marriage and I was thinking that was one way of double checking George Jnr...then again, perhaps he was just told his father was dead...I've got one lot on the other side who considered father dead for 20 years.

Thank you Isobel

Donna
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