William Hoatson.....

[Legs11]

Hi everyone,

I believe the William Hoatson who married Jane Thomson to be the same William Hoatson who was baptised to James Hoatson and Martha Robertson at Wanlockhead on July 6, 1782. Unfortunately I cannot find a single document that says they are the same person.
There seem to be no adult records for William Hoatson at Wanlockhead, even though there are records for his three siblings. Therefore I assume he either died young or moved away from Wanlockhead.
However there is record of William's death in the Crawfordjohn parish
record. The record says William was 52 when he died Feb 20, 1833.
This puts his approximate birth year to be 1781, close to that of the Wanlockhead William.
The record also says he was buried at Sanquhar Churchyard, which is
not especially close to Crawfordjohn and not where Jane (his wife) came from. She was from Closeburn, Dumfries.
William was 15 years older than Jane and he died at the relatively young age of 52. This means Jane was a young woman at his death. She was only 37. A friend I have who's pretty knowledgeable about local customs thinks it's very likely that William was buried in a family plot with his parents in the Sanquhar Churchyard. Unfortunately, there is no monument there to mark either his grave or James and Martha's. I've found no record of where James and Martha were buried but it was pretty common for many of the Wanlockhead residents to be buried at Sanquhar. I believe there is even a footpath from Wanlockhead to Sanquhar known as the coffin trail. There are two known James Hoatson monuments at Sanquhar, but I believe one has fallen and the other not our James as he has a different wife.
William was baptised at Wanlockhead. His sister Jean was also
baptised at Wanlockhead on August 15, 1784. However when checking the Crawfordjohn register I found another earlier baptism for Jean a year
earlier, August 17, 1783 which says she was born on Aug 12. It's
definitely James and Martha's daughter as the record says James was
"workman in Wanlockhead".
I speculate that work was uneven at Wanlockhead and the family moved back and forth between Crawfordjohn and Wanlockhead as the work went. I don't know where Martha was from, maybe her family
was from Crawfordjohn. Maybe James' family was from there. At any
rate, there are records of the family living in both villages. Given these several circumstantial evidences, can I conclude that the two Williams are probably the same man?

So is there any way of finding out if the Wanlockhead and the Crawfordjohn William Hoatson are the same man or not?

Love
Legs
xxxx

[CatrionaL]

Good morning Legs

I don't have an answer to your question "So is there any way of finding out if the Wanlockhead and the Crawfordjohn William Hoatson are the same man or not?"

However I did want to comment on the two different dates for the birth of a Jean. It's very possible that the first Jean did not reach her first birthday and that the parents used the name Jean again for the new baby. I have numerous examples of that on my tree.

Hope somebody else can give you a helpful answer to your question.

Catriona

[Legs11]

Thank you Catriona,

I hadn't even noticed the differing dates!!

Happy New Year

Love
Legs
xxxx