Tracing the Gilbertsons: Alexander (b. circa 1875)

Gilbertson is my mother’s maiden name and as she had given me copies of various original certificates she had inherited I started to research her side of the family by tracing the Gilbertsons. I was able to quickly go back to my great-grandfather Alexander Gilbertson, a warehouseman or dock checker, as he appears on the births, marriage and death certificates of his son, my grandfather Alexander. I also have a rememberance card from his own burial service and details of the family lair at Seafield Cemetery, Edinburgh. He died aged 40 at 24 Burlington Street, Leith on the 14th September 1916 and was buried on 16th. To go further back I then started looking at ScotlandsPeople.com for his birth and marriage certificates and in Census returns.

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.