6th: Win one, lose one

Further to the posting on the 24th Feb: I was looking for likely (male) descendants of Robert and Agnes (BLACK) FAIRBAIRN, Robert possibly being a descendant of Robert and Agnes (LANDRETH) FAIRBAIRN. One line came to a premature end in WW1, that of the David son of David & Margaret (WHILLANS) FAIRBAIRN, as he died unmarried (but with a dtr Alison BELL aged 11 showing as a dependent on his military record).
But in the process I unexpectedly found a marriage back in Jedburgh of one of the Stody, Norfolk line of David (Snr)'s brother Robert. 1903 Jedburgh, David FAIRBAIRN married Eleanor FAIR.
Wonder why he went back to Jedburgh from Norfolk when I thought most of the family had moved south?
The dna project would like to hear from a descendant of David and Margaret (WHILLANS) FAIRBIARN to match against the recruit from his brother Robert's line (marr. Isabella WEAVER).

17th: Where things can lead...

I've been catching up on the family of Donald McFADEN and Jessie SINTON, and trying to figure out if I could find any clues as to where Jessie fitted into the Southdean SINTONs. My guess is as daughter of James SINTON and Barbary OLIVER, given the Oliver names in the children, but against this id is that there are no Barbara's in the known family, even if the second son is indeed James.
In the process, I decided to re-check James' baptism for any further clues. Nothing I hadn't already explored, BUT the next entry caught my attention rather more this time.
It was for the baptism of a John, son of a John DONALDSON & Elizabeth SMITH.
Given the SINTON activity, and that I'd never really explored anything at all about Peter SINTON's wife Janet DONALDSON, I decided to follow this family around to see where it might lead. Nowhere in particular, although I did find that John Snr was the son of a John DONALDSON and Margaret DEANS. They are probably not of an age to be Janet DONALDSON's parents (possibly John is a brother, or more likely a nephew), but it did lead me to my breakthrough for the day.
I looked at the gaps in the children of Peter SINTON and Janet DONALDSON, and thought I'd see if there might be a Margaret surviving into civil registration.
There was. One Margaret ROBSON nee SINTON. Haven't yet checked if there's any relationship between Margaret's husband, Thomas ROBSON, carrier of Jedburgh, and Margaret's sister Isabella's husband Richard ROBSON, but have expanded the SINTON tree somewhat by tracking Thomas and Margaret's family down to 1901.
Newly connected names: HERBERTSON, BAIRD, LITSTER, GIBSON; Places include Jedburgh and Kinross, with a spell in Kelvin. I've only found one daughter, Jessie ROBSON, who had two illegitimate children, a James DOUGLAS and a Margaret HERBERTSON. She also seems to have married a John BAIRD but I've no idea what happened to him, just that she reverted to using his surname and saying she was married in two census returns, but her death cert states she was single. The 1852 marriage entry for a John BAIRD and Jessie ROBSON doesn't have any real clues that it is the right Jessie, and they were certainly never together in a census.

12th: Mostly dna - SINTON match, HENDERSON lineage confirmed

Mostly a DNA day or two as a heap of results came pouring in.
SINTON and HENDERSON data in the DNA Projects Portal Lineages section have been updated to reflect the latest findings, namely that yes, there is indeed a relationship between the Jedburgh SINTON family of William and Isabella (SCOTT) SINTON and the Southdean SINTONs
As William's page shows, we'd love to find a distant cousin of the current representative of this line to help determine whether the differences in the dna signatures crept into the lineage before or after William.

The HENDERSON result is just a confirmation that we're working with the correct dna signature for Archibald - not that it helps us thru the brick wall, as there aren't any matches anywhere in the dna tested community as yet.

Apr 3, 2008: More happenstance - WIGHT/HALL

While looking for something else I happened to notice an 1858 death cert. for a Margaret WIGHT, mother's maiden name HALL and thought that might be interesting. Sure enough her parents were given as James WIGHT, joiner, dec'd and Isabella HALL, which matches the profile for her to be a sister to my Jane WIGHT who married Peter SINTON, although she could belong to one of the other James WIGHT/Isabella HALL couples. For now, I'll claim her as one of mine, because of the "joiner" occupation for James, and her birthplace of Jedburgh.