I need an expert, please..............

[Anne H]

Can I have your expert opinion, please? My head is spinning with all these different Brown families!

I have several families “waiting in the wings” until I can confirm my findings. Two of these families are Millar and Brown. I got it into my head that my great grandmother, Margaret Millar was somehow related (however distant) to her second husband, John Brown, although I haven’t come up with anything to confirm that one way or the other. I couldn’t find the DC’s for her parents, so I decided to look for her father’s family (William Millar) and going by the naming pattern of the children, I went looking for a John Millar and Jane Brown with a son called William and came up with a family who seemed just right. I eventually found all the censuses for them and knew I had the right family then full confirmation came when I finally found the DC for father, William Millar, and sure enough, his parents were John Millar and Janet Brown. Not only that, but I eventually found the DC for William’s mother and got another generation, and to top it all off, I found both the mother’s parents in the Linlithgow MI’s. Sweet success after looking for them for about three years!


On the other hand, her mother’s family (Christina Allan) has been more difficult.

On one of the children's BC’s Christina’s name was stated as Christina Allan Millar with her maiden name being Thomson…father William was the informant.

On son, John’s BC of 1855, I discovered Christina was 27 and born in Polmont and John was the first child for both of them and there was no mention of a maiden name of Thomson on this BC (or any of the other BC’s) so I was a little confused but thought it was just a misunderstanding and put it in the back of my head.

Again, looking for her parents, I went with the naming pattern of the children and set out looking for a John Allan and Elizabeth Brown with a daughter called Christina born around 1828. I did find a John and Elizabeth, with a daughter, Christian Allan dob 1825…looked good, found the rest of that family but couldn’t find anything else. I eventually found her DC, but hubby only stated her father’s surname “Allan”…very disappointing!

For almost three years, I couldn’t find anything to confirm whether or not I had the right family, until just before the end of the free Ancestry the other week, when I looked for them on the 1841 Census and finally found an Elizabeth Brown, 40, with Christn Allan, 15, and the rest of the Allan children whose ages were a little out, but the names matched the children I had waiting in the “wings”, and even an extra 8 month old I didn’t have. No mention of father, John Allan.

By 1851, Christina was married and I knew where she was but couldn’t find her mother or any of her siblings, until I found a John Allan, 16, coalminer who was the nephew of a Rob Brown, coal miner born in Carriden, Linlithgow, with his wife Elizabeth and son John. That looked good and thought that Christina’s mother Elizabeth Brown and this Rob Brown could be brother and sister, so I tried the naming pattern again and set off looking for a Robert Brown with a wife Christina having a daughter Elizabeth and son Robert and I came up with none other than Robert Brown marrying a Christian Thomson in Carriden and found eight children for them, but no Elizabeth born around 1800. I finally found Elizabeth born in 1800 in Inveresk With Musselburgh. All the certificates are extracts.

Is this a nice little clue or just a coincidence? Could Christina Allan’s husband, William Millar have been thinking about Christina's grandmother’s name when he said his wife’s maiden name was Thomson?

Sorry this is long and probably confusing, but my poor head is spinning! Do I possibly have the right families here or am I just hoping for another successful outcome as with my Millar family?

Any comments or guidance will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Anne H

[SarahND]

Is this a nice little clue or just a coincidence? Could Christina Allan’s husband, William Millar have been thinking about Christina's grandmother’s name when he said his wife’s maiden name was Thomson?

Sounds quite possible to me. In a number of the certificates I have looked at the informant jumped a generation in the maiden surnames. It makes you wonder how the question was asked. Perhaps the name of the mother was already given, then the clerk or whoever asked, "... and the maiden surname of the mother?" and the informant assumed it was the mother of the mother... if you see what I mean!

Look forward to hearing what others think.

Regards,
Sarah

[Anne H]

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for that, that thought had occurred to me also. Another thought that came to mind was that there was a possibility that if both Christina’s parents had died after the 1841 Census maybe the family then went to live with their grandparents…if that was the case, then maybe Christina’s husband, William Millar only knew the grandmother. Always a possibility!

Also, when I couldn’t find Christina’s father, John Allan, who I thought might also have been a coal miner (like his sons), I had a look here http://www.mining-villages.co.uk/262.html to see if I could find any mention of him…but nothing. What I did find though, was very interesting and heartbreaking. The long hours people had to work, especially the youngsters and the heavy weight of the coal plus the distances they had to drag the coal was unbelievable! I was in tears reading some of the stories.

I also found this interesting write-up on the place where I found the family living in 1841, the Divities…

[The Divities, ………… are a set of cottages built by squatting colliers. The walls, if they may be so called, are constructed of divit [turf] and the roofs are thatched with reeds and heather. They have a very singular appearance; and the one apartment is generally partitioned into as many as may be deemed necessary for the family and its appendages, viz. pigs, fowls, cuddies [donkies], and storegarden-stuff, grown during the summer in the ground adjoining the huts. They have no drainage, as the earth is of so boggy and turfy a nature as to absorb everything thrown upon it]

So while it didn’t give me any information about the Allan family, it did give me a description of where they lived.

Regards,
Anne H