Tracing the Gilbertsons: Margaret (b. 1850)

Researching my great grandfather Alexander Gilbertson did not give any leads on his father but it did for his mother. His birth certificate was not on ScotlandsPeople.com but his marriage and death certificates were. Respectively, they give her as “Margaret Fea, formerly Gilbertson, nee Gilbertson” and “Margaret Gilbertson, previously Fea, nee Gilbertson”. On the same website I looked into this discrepancy and began to piece together a picture of her life.

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.