To quote the guidelines for the Head of Family:

NAME AND SURNAME of every Person, whether Member of Family, Visitor, Boarder, or Servant, who

1. passed the night of Sunday, April 2nd, 1911, in this dwelling and was alive at midnight, or
2. arrived in this dwelling on the morning of Monday, April 3rd, not having been enumerated elsewhere.

No one else must be included.

It is as if the author, her father Thomas Doherty, remembered that she was staying elsewhere and so should not be noted down. The inscription error is understandable as to exclude his child may have seemed counter-intuitive.

I am currently looking at some other records to see if I can spot her in another household. I will update this when I have checked them out. Any other suggestions would be most welcome!

William was born around 1930 and as Jim relates he had been previously married to Elizabeth Anne Hall in Spalding, Lincolnshire. I knew worked as a travelling salesman of silk – a ‘hawker’ – and so with Margaret, who he married in 1874 had moved around a lot.

Each child born in another town and as Jim notes, at least one of
their first two children ,James Henry, appears to have been left in Smyllum Orphanage,
Lanark. The 1881 census shows he and his wife as lodgers in Newstead, Melrose but without any mention of children. Yet by then, with the help of Jim, I now know they had had three.

The third was my great grandmother Mary Ellen, born in Scotland. The fourth Thomas was born in Wales and the fifth Catherine Penrith born in Penrith, England. It is only in the 1891 census that these three appear with thier parents living at Cowgate in Edinburgh.

Margaret McVeigh's Certificate of Baptism

Their life appears not to have been at all easy as they lived their last years in poorhouse in Colinton, Edinburgh. Wiliam died in 1905 but of Margaret there is no record. What I do have is her certificate of baptism in 1844 extracted in 1927. Whether there is an event around then that required her certificate may be a new line of enquiry.

Jim’s research on his Renshaw line is detailed and has many interesting annotations. It also covers at a lesser extent the other side of my mother’s family from her grandfather James Scott who marrried Mary Ellen. When I have read through all this over the holidays I will write on what I have learnt.

Lesson for today:
Before starting to thrash around in all that costly online research mire type “surname surname name” and Google it.

In the Census of 1841 there are two John Gilbertsons of about the correct age, both living in Lothian. One is recorded as a shoemaker aged 20 to 25 living with his mother Margaret Gilbertson aged 50 at 17 West Nicholson Street, Edinburgh. There other is aged 25 to 30 working as a Male Servant on the Fishery of the Hopetoun Estate in Abercorn to the west of the Forth Bridges.

In the 1851 Census John and Catharine [sic] are living in Nairn with the first two children Angus R (1) and Margaret (0 ie.8months).

Catherine’s brother Paul Ross and servant Margaret Grant. Catherine’s mother’s maiden name was Grant but I haven’t established concrete link yet.
On Margaret’s marriage certificates that her father

[umap id="15707" size="s" alignment="center"]

Blairmore near Cawdor

The Cawdor Parish Register for states:

Margaret to John Gilbertson Boot and Shoemaker at Blairmore, Parish of Cawdor, and Catherine Ross his wife was born on 9th Dec 1850, and baptized 14 January 1851. Witnesses – John McFarquhar, Farmer, Meikle Geddes and Jas MacKilligan, Farmer, Piperhill.

Three months later in the Census we can see her with her parents and older brother Angus. By 1861 they had moved to Nairn and then in the 1871 Census she is a general servant living with her family in Elgin. Before the next Census her had had her son Alexander and they had all moved to Edinburgh.

In 1881 she is recorded as unmarried and working as a  ‘tablemaid’ at 42 Heriot Row in the New Town. The rest of the family along with a 5 year old grandson Alex [sic] are living a half-an-hour walk south of the center at 1 Argyle Park Terrace by the Meadows. In the same year she married John G. Fea (35) and the certificate lists her as Maggie (30), spinster. John’s genealogy is presented at northern-skies.net, a site that specialises in the Fea name.

The 1891 Census then shows her living at 19 George Street,  Leith with three children from that marriage: Peter Hepburn (8) born in the suburb Juniper Green to the southwest of Edinburgh; John G G (6) born in Edinburgh; Christina (4) born in Leith. Although it does not mention her husband it states wife not widow and further searches reveals he died 7 years later in 1898 in St Giles, Edinburgh.

Margaret died of 9 October 1929 of heart disease at 10 Tay Street, Polwarth, Edinburgh.

I knew Alexander married Mary Ann McKenzie on the 25th of March 1898 as it is recorded on his sons birth certificate and this made it easy to obtain certificate online. The address given was that recorded in the cemetery and they were both 22. and then in 1901 the latest availible census shows Alexander (25) with his wife Mary (24 – possiibilty pregnant with my grandfather who was born at the end of that year) and their children William (2) and Mary (1) which correlate with the details on the certificates.  So if he was almost 42 when he died or if just 22 when married, his date of birth could to be from 16th September 1974 to 25th March 1877.  However of the 21 male births recorded in the Statutory Register Births from 1973 to 1978 none are an Alex or Alexander and only one begins with an A for Arthur so to advance I started investigating his parents.

John or William?

His marriage list his father is as a deceased shoemaker named John – the same as his grandfather. It could be Wm ie. William but this may be clearer on the original or to someone more accustomed to these old documents (see image). In contrast that of his death lists his father as a farmer, also named Alexander. However there are no official records of such a person of an apropriate age under either name.

This may be just be a error in documentation but when examined further it suggests another explanation.  We can trace Alexander back in the 1891 Census where as an unmarried grocer’s assistant aged 16 he is living in digs with 2 others in Queen Street (now Shore Place), South Leith.  A 5 year old called Alex appears in the 1881 Census asliving with his grandparents at 1 Argyle Park Terrace,  Edinburgh who lived before with their daughter Catherine in Elgin as seen in the 1871 census. In 1881 Catherine is also living in Edinburgh but on the other side of town as unmarried servant and in the same year she, recorded as a spinster, married to take the surname Fea.

On the certificates I have Alexander’s mother is consistently listed as Margaret Gilbertson nee Fea. It is clear that she was not married when she had Alexander and as suggested in the research helkp given on the Scotland’s People website it would have not been uncommmon for an illigitimate birth to go unregisted and for the child to adopt his mother’s surname. Apart from this unfortunate story what we have is not only a outline of the first half of my great-grandfather’s life but also the family of his mother. This leads to the next step back in tracing the Gilibertson family.