15th: More confused FAIRBAIRNs

The Michigan marriages continue to intrigue.
One lady was obviously used as a model by Elizabeth TAYLOR, as she, also an Elizabeth, married the same chap twice, 1893 and 1909, with their son recorded in the 1900 census under her maiden surname (WILLMAN), and in 1910 census under her regained married name (McCURDY).

Another of the FAIRBAIRN families really can't make up their mind whether their surname is LAMPSON or SAMPSON. Frederick LAMPSON's marriage is witnessed by his brother Robert SAMPSON. But I do assume these registers are transcripts of original certificates here as the handwriting does seem rather uniform, and accuracy of transcriptions does rather vary.
A sister Helen M is shown as marrying as SAMPSON with her father indexed as William R, the R presumably being a misinterpreted F from someone whose handwriting is as bad as mine.

14th: Confused William

Between marrying Rosa KUHNLE in 1896 and Josephine MARCOTTE in 1904, William E, son of David FAIRBAIRN and Charity WALKER seems to have had a brainstorm about who his parents were. By his second marriage he says they are Wm FAIRBAIRN and Deviza WADE !!!
I'm fully convinced that the two marriages are the same William E FAIRBAIRN because of census data that places his children from the first marriage with William and Josephine in a later census, and William shows he's on his second marriage in 1904.

The Michigan marriages data also includes the marr. of Phyllis I LAMPSON dtr of Joan Helen LAMPSON nee FAIRBAIRN as well, Joan being the granddaughter of James FAIRBAIRN and Joan FORSYTH.

13th: Michigan marriages a good find

Well, that serendipity from yesterday was a wonderful sidetrack.
Along the way I've found another son of David FAIRBAIRN and Charity WALKER married in Michigan (William E) and got sidetracked onto trying, unsuccessfully, to figure out who an Isabella Elliot FAIRBAIRN was, born Ontario 1850, married the Rev James Anderson Ross DICKSON (somewhere, possibly London Ontario), and lived Galt Ontario.
And it reinforced how useful it can be to squirrel away information that just might come in useful later.
William E, the son of David and Charity married a Rosa KUHNLE, who sounded a bit familiar. Sure enough, I'd found and saved, and obit for Rosa FAIRBAIRN nee KUHNLE last year.
While trying to solve who Isabella Elliot FAIRBAIRN was I also stumbled upon the baptism of an Isabella MITCHELL, dtr of an Agnes FAIRBAIRN and Alexander MITCHELL baptised in Chatham, Ottawa River Canada East by the same Minister who married David FAIRBAIRN and his first wife Prudential ARNOLD.
Haven't figured out who this Agnes is either, anyone know?

12th: Serendipity - again

Got sidetracked by Dick Eastman's newsletter advising that the the Family Search pilot (http://www.familysearch.org/ select Search Records, then Record Search Pilot) had added a heap of images of all sorts of records, so checked out what might be of interest.
Think they've been there a while, but what I did find were indexed images of Michigan marriages 1868-1925.
Checked out the FAIRBAIRNs and found at least two of particular interest (so far):
David s/o David and Charity (Walker)'s marriage to Mina Schryer COOK (which I knew was somewhere in Michigan)
and one that I didn't know was there at all, last sighting being 1901 census in Ratho North, WLN, Scotland. Jessie D d/o Walter FAIRBAIRN and Isabella SCOTT found marrying a John JONES in Detroit in 1924, much to my surprise.

Jan 28, 2008: DNA success story

The RUINCIMAN Surname DNA project now shows that the respective descendants of the Michigan and Wanton Walls RUNCIMAN families are a very good match, at 37 out of 37 markers. Now I'm trying to work out whether or not it is worth upgrading the tests to get a better idea of how closely related, or just to fit William in where he probably belongs anyway. I reckon his grandfather is probably a son of John and Betsy(FAMILTON) RUNCIMAN, so along with this assumption, and that the Michigan James and William are cousins, not brothers, that's where I've placed them in the RUNCIMAN family tree. If anyone has a convincing argument of where better to place them, speak up.

Still looking for a willing descendant of James & Isabella (CARTER) RUNCIMAN to join the project - which is growing. There's been some interest from a descendant of William of Crail whose descendants seemed determined to set foot in a fair few countries and Counties: Fife, Dunbar, Ireland, Canada, NZ, Australia... and hopefully Don will eventually get some evidence of a connection between his James and Janet (HOG) RUNCIMAN of Selkirk then Canada, and the James & Agnes (HERIOT) RUNCIMAN of Ayton/Dunbar whose descendants went to Selkirk, Ohio, and NZ.

Dec 6, 2007: Rolling around the RUNCIMeN

First circle of "The Wheel" of Michigan RUNCIMANs checked off against my data, one or two date discrepancies and a couple of surnames for the wives, one of whom involved yet more economy of effort as it led me to investigate whether or not Agnes COLLINS who married John RUNCIMAN was also the Agnes RUNCIMAN, 2nd wife of John's brother George. The chart showed them with the same birth/dth years, and I already had the 1910 census which showed George and Agnes with Agnes' children from her first marriage, QED. Might have caught that earlier if they'd been listed as George's niece and nephews instead of his step-children!
The Michigan RUNCIMAN chart has been updated as a result.

Nov 19, 2007: One more down, one to go

Yes, the Michigan RUNCIMAN contact did indeed agree to participate in the RUNCIMAN Surname DNA project, so that's a representative from the William side. They also had a 3 yr old mobile number for one of the James' descendants I'd been chasing around the available records. And it still worked. Had a very interesting chat to the chap at the other end, a brother of the one I'd been tracking.

Nov 18, 2007: Michigan RUNCIMeN ...

A couple of my USA phone calls have finally hit paydirt. Email received from a descendant of one of the Michigan RUNCIMeN (William's line), confirming my suppositions on who was related to whom in Stockbridge. Hope this also leads to descendants of the line of James, and to participation in the RUNCIMAN Surname DNA project for both lines.
Continued fishing around in TURNBULLs, but that sidetracked me back to FAIRBAIRNs as a couple of them married FAIRBAIRN brothers, or so it looked. Proven, but unfortunately, neither look like my families.
While chasing around census data for this lot I happened across a James FAIRBAIRN from Swinton, but lost him again.

Nov 8, 2007: RUNCIMAN dna project

RUNCIMAN DNA project Patriarchs page has been updated with the three lines I'm particularly interested in proving a connection to/between. And if anyone knows the whereabouts of any of the descendants of the Michigan families who might be willing to participate I'd love to hear from them. There's a discount going for some of the tests for the next couple of months (some details on the Recruitment pages).

Oct 15, 2007: Wanton Walls to Michigan; Devon to Colorado

Some METHERELL snippets from a posting in my Guestbook by Heather A has tidied up a few more loose ends down the PEEK line.
And once again thrown a heap of evidence against the oft quoted statement that "our forbears didn't move around a lot".
I've followed some of the connected METHERELL families around from Devon to Cumberland to Pennsylvania to New York, back to Cumberland and back to Colorado.

I've also now spoken to (the wife of) a descendant of the William RUNCIMAN who went to Michigan around 1850, so have hopes of finding out a bit more about the States branch I hope to connect to the Wanton Walls lot one day.
In anticipation of which, I've added to the charts on the site by including the Michigan RUNCIMANs.

Oct 14, 2007: web updated

A few snippets updated for assorted Borders families (FAIRBAIRN descendants).

And it's probably time there was a full web page update, including adding a TAYLOR chart which I see seems to have either gone awol, or never existed in the first place.

It looks unlikely that the RICHARDSON connection with John Logie BAIRD is a relation, just a complete coincidence of time and place in a small Northumberland town in the present day.

And I have my first taker for a dna survey of the RUNCIMAN family. All I have to do now is track down some present day Michigan descendants of both William and James and convince them as well. Could be quite exciting, or a complete let down in that the family stories may be either disproved, or more likely, unable to be proven, but I'd like to think that modern science can "prove" a relationship between the Wanton Walls and Michigan RUNCIMAN families, even if we don't know exactly where they fit.

Oct 10, 2007: Matching Michigan and Borders RUNCIMEN?

Next lornahen webpage update will include a link to the geograph picture of Wanton Walls on the place pages. Which activity was prompted by an early morning phone call from George RUNCIMAN ex of Wanton Walls in response to a letter I'd written him. (It was a welcome call, but it was 5:30am, I hope I sounded coherent). I was trying to find out if there was any further information to be had about the Michigan link and the current whereabouts, if any, of the letters between the Michigan and the Wanton Walls RUNCIMEN back in the 1850s-1870s(?). George was convinced that they were related, and added a snippet, to be verified somehow, that the original Michigan lot had been transported following deer poaching in the Edgarhope forest (appears on maps as Edgarhope Wood, just north of Lauder).

Given my current interest in DNA testing and genealogy, wonder if any of the US lot and the Scottish lot would be interesting in comparing dna to "prove" this? A 37 marker test comparing 2 male line surname descendants showing identical or close dna matches apparently have a 50% chance of sharing common male ancestors within 2 generations, and 95% chance within 7 generations, this latter would cover current day family back to known ancestors on the Scottish side, and likely ancestors on the American side. I can spot several Scottish candidates, but Michigan line descendants look a bit thin on the ground unless I do some more research. The last known male descendant of William (still a RUNCIMAN) that I have records of died in 1981, and the last I have down from James isn't at the address I had for him any more.