16th: Big brother updated

Probably time I updated Big Brother again, seem to have got sidetracked from keeping my main pages updated.

The main changes of late have been on the GRAY front, with the family of Margaret GRAY, newly confirmed as a dtr of William GRAY and Margaret SUTHERLAND.
A fair few of her descendants have been tracked and included in the GRAY chart, and I've also given Margaret a page of her own, purely to show I've identified Tormsdale, where her 1855 death cert said she was born.
This exercise did result in many updates to the MORGAN families of Thurso and Halkirk, but most of those aren't in my published data, and haven't resulted in any connection to Kathrin MORGAN being discovered.

Also a few tweaks in the HAMLEY tree thanks to Vikki who sent me a copy of Elizabeth HAMLEY nee ROWE's 1865 death cert. Given the informant was Charles HAMLEY, assumed to be her son Charles Baskerville HAMLEY, I checked where I'd got too in documenting his family too. Still cannot find dtr Selina Mary in 1901 at all, but did find her in Plymouth with husband, piano dealer Charles Frederick HOCKING in 1911 (no children with them). Earlier census identifications are complicated somewhat by there being another Charles & Selina HOCKING couple (in Cornwall) who married earlier. Will show up on the ROWE chart as a few added twigs.

8th: Wouldn't you know it...

As soon as I decide there's a lull on updates to the visible, published, data, along comes a bunch more, just after I've updated the online databases!

Thanks Bobby, the GRAY updates will appear in due course.

Bobby saw my posting (page down to my one) on the Caithness.org forum asking for GRAY descendants who might be interested in proving a theory about two GRAY families in Watten, Caithness, by joining the GRAY DNA project.

He then acted on a hunch about a BRUCE in his tree, and sure enough, found an additional daughter for the family of William GRAY and Margaret SUTHERLAND.
There's a Margaret who married a William MURRAY and lived at Olgrinmore, Halkirk (1851).

Behind the scenes however, Harry and I have been having fun sorting out his STEPHENSON family of Edinburgh, formerly Kelso, Ancrum, Gifford, and as he's just found out, Cumberland, thanks to Sonia in Mississippi. I'm just tagging along for the ride as there's a WIGHT connection in there that one day we may prove is related to the other STEPHENSON/WIGHT connection that makes us distant cousins.

31st: McADIE Yes? No? BAINs yes.

Contacted by Katherine about her William McADIE, wondering if he might be the William son of George and Elizabeth (ROSIE) McADIE in my database.
Jury still out. I don't have anything certain about this William beyond 1841, although he may be the mystery, unidentified William in Victoria, Australia witnessing assorted events in his brother Robert's family.
I suggested that possibly her William was the son of the George, son of William McADIE and Susanna MULLICAN, but a descendant of that family pointed out that his William had died in Forres in 1865. Back to the drawing board, so just maybe a farmer's son did become an outdoors HM Customs Officer in England after all.

A lot of people obviously think it's time I was dragged away from Borders DNA projects and did some more Caithness research, or even some closer to home.

Next one out of the woodwork was an email from a much closer BAIN cousin who was wondering if I was the person he was looking for - had been in contact with his sister some years ago, had something to do with the Kapiti Genealogy Society. Yes on both counts. Back when I last tried to find him, no wonder I couldn't find him where I expected to in the Sth Island, he was living much much closer, just over the hill, in the same town, probably no more than 10 mins away from where I used to live!
Time to drag out Nana's old photo album and see what I can find in it for him for when we meet up in a week or two.

How I found his sister, and why, is one of my favourite "it's a small world" stories.
Several years ago a BAIN researcher I was in contact with in Australia decided that a quest he'd been given was in the too hard basket.
"Find my WW11 BAIN penpal in NZ". I think I was given a forename, but that was it.
I had one in my database of an age to be around at the time concerned, a 2nd? cousin of mine I'd never contacted, but knew where she was. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I decided to ring her and at the very least get a bit of the BAIN tree updated. However, it turned out that yes, she was the penpal concerned, and had vivid memories of sending off food parcels to London. End result, penpals back in contact and my tree a tad more accurate in the family of John BAIN & Margaret McMILLAN.
Donald advises that he and his wife were in Caithness a couple of years ago, and that his wife also has BAIN connections from near Halkirk. Curiousity aroused, but will have to wait until we meet. Apparently a different lot, with McBEATH connections at Spittal.

30th: McDONALD sorted

Bobby asked if I thought the niece, Margaret McDONALD, shown living with William TAYLOR and Janet GRAY in 1841 and 1851 at Sibster, Halkirk might be the dtr of William McDONALD and Margaret GUNN.
That was indeed where I had also thought she might belong, but had never investigated further to see if there was any link to our Isabella McDONALD, first wife of said William TAYLOR.
So much more information is now more readily available, so I set off to solve the mystery.
We were both wrong, as were the census records. Niece indeed! She was William's grandchild, illegitimate dtr of Christina (housemaid) with a George McDONALD, (merchant). No wonder I'd not found her in subsequent census returns before this, she died aged 29 in 1859. Another mystery solved, and a bit of the database straightened out. That particular family have real trouble naming their relationships correctly!

Found a Sth African site that had some useful information on it (http://www.ancestry24.co.za). Didn't find anything on my FAIRBAIRNs, but did find a bit more out about the family of the newspaper FAIRBAIRN there. Some of the family are on OneGreatFamily
and show John as being born Ledgerwood, BEW 1794, which raised my interest a tad. Any male FAIRBAIRN descendants out there interested in joining the FAIRBAIRN dna project?

Nov 22, 2007: Bit of a GRAY area

Bit of digging around on the GRAYs of Caithness, filling in some census gaps on the family of William & Isabella GRAY at Tongside, Halkirk. This being prompted by a renewed contact from a researcher I last heard from 12 yrs ago. Don't yet know what he's found in the intervening time period, but I hope he agrees with my write up about Donald GRAY. Found a few more twigs and where at least one of them ended up (Benjamin died in Colinton, MLN in 1924, so he moved away from Caithness).