Mar, 22: 2008: Quebec FAIRBAIRNs, MyHeritage update

As I've checked off quite a few of the Quebec FAIRBAIRN bits I already have, I've put a preliminary update of the rellies database onto MyHeritage, but not yet onto Rootsweb.
If you check it out, don't be surprised about incomplete families, stray people without parents etc, I'm only marking people to be included as I find them in assorted BDM, census or cemetery records, or am otherewise convinced they exist and my data is something like accurate.

Mar 3, 2008: Milling around Devon

Places section of "Big Brother" web site updated to include a section on the Lumburn Mill. General confusion on how come this picture is a Dawe family one, when it has to have been taken after they'd all left the area or died.
No doubt whatsoever that it is the Lumburn Mill however.

The smartmatching feature of MyHeritage is indeed working. Within a day of reloading my basic tree there again, I've been contacted by two people, one a remote connection via the husband of Emma BISHOP (marr. William Walter PIDDINGTON in the States), with a secondary connection back to the DOOLE/OLDS of Taranaki etc, and a second, closer connection, with a descendant of Agnes ADDISON nee BROOMFIELD, exactly how yet to be determined.

Mar 2, 2008: Which William ROSIE?

Contacted by a ROSIE researcher on GenesReunited wondering if we had a match on William who married Margaret McADIE.
Her tree definitely showed a William of the right age and married to Margaret, but gave William's parents as Alexander ROSIE and Charlotta MANSON, whereas William's 1867 death cert says his parents are Alexander ROSIE and Elizabeth MANSON, so the jury is still out.
Mistake on death cert or another couple? At least one other tree (on WorldConnect) shows the same as her.
Nonetheless it did prompt me to check for a few more twigs, so now Elizabeth Jane, dtr of David Sinclair Wemyss McADIE & Margaret BAIN, has been found in 1901 with her husband William MacKAY and two daughters with a string of names each.

Assorted descendant charts updated: DAWE, ROWE, McADIE.

Also re-investigated MyHeritage, the site GenCircles morphed into.
Looks like they've fixed a few of the initial teething troubles, so have reloaded my basic BMD data there.
The smartmatching that was a good feature of GenCircles appears to be working.

Dec 24, 2007: Whitsome rethink, GenCircles

Been thinking about Archibald FAIRBAIRNs. And re-examining what I knew about the 1783 Whitsome baptism. Not a lot as it turns out. I'll update the pages shortly (after Christmas), but I now suspect that my showing Whitsome for the 2nd family might be a bit of a leap. Lesley, of the Whitsome one place study, advises that the OPR for the entry merely shows Archibald as the son of an Archibald, a hynd resident at the now extinct farm of Whitsome Vaults, no mother mentioned. 1783 is a tad earlier than I'd be looking for a 50 yr old from the 1841 census, but the place is very close to Swinton, so just maybe, this is actually the Archibald, son of Archibald and Alison, who went on to marry Janet SCOTT.

Archibald and Mary (GRIERSON) FAIRBAIRN are shown in the Bowden Parish Kirk Sessions of Jul 1784 as "said to be married in an irregular way a short time ago". This is the first confirmed sighting I have of them.
Son George married in Melrose and said he was born variously Spaw, Hobkirk and Roxburghshire. Lived at Broomilees and died Harwoodburn, Selkirkshire. So, the likely places for the ancestral home of the Archibald who married Mary are many and varied, but may not include Whitsome after all.

GenCircles seems to have reincarnated itself into quite an interesting new version, MyHeritage.
Haven't explored a lot yet, but it automatically put my gedcoms from GenCircles there, so you can see the tree in a different way at my pages at MyHeritage and seems to have quite a powerful search engine attached. Haven't yet found how to change the standard introductory blurb from what they generated, and it may be having a few teething troubles....

Merry Christmas, and may 2008 be a great year for you and yours.