Roots, shoots and stories

Looking at my own family tree, I can find multiple ancestors who lost one or more children at a young age. That was obviously the norm in past centuries, but despite it being a common occurrence, I expect the parents' grief would have been just as deep. My paternal grandparents lost their first three children - John at age 8 from 'Convulsions due to congestion of the brain' ( nowadays this would be a seizure/stroke),  Jeannie at 8 months from 'enteritis' and George at age 1 from measles, while my maternal grandparents lost a son James aged 1, from heart failure. My great great grandmother Mary Boag died from complications of childbirth, leaving three children under the age of 10 - the new baby son dying one day before she did. Again this was not unusual. When I compare the ages of deaths of my direct ancestors, I think I am remarkably lucky. The graphic above is from www.dnapainter.com where their ancestral tree feature allows you to make age at death comparisons. T

I thought quite hard about how I could interpret this theme. The obvious choice seemed to be writing about an ancestor that I felt I had a lot in common with. Having watched TV programmes like 'Who do you think you are', 'Finding your roots' and 'DNA journey' where the individuals concerned, whether they be actors, politicians, musicians etc. find out that they have pursued the same career or have faced the same struggles as an ancestor, I thought that there must be someone back in time that I've come across in my research that I have a lot in common with. But no.  I haven't struggled with poverty like most of my ancestors, who were ordinary working class people - the miners, the mill workers, the blacksmiths, the labourers. There is no chance I will end up in a workhouse or be buried as a pauper having died aged 38 of consumption, like my maternal 2 x great grandfather, Matthew Keir. I haven't had children that I needed to send out to work,  sent

Following on from the last topic of ‘Social Media’, I am going to continue with the story from 1811 of James McAra, my 3 x great uncle. He was found guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh of the culpable homicide of his brother, Alexander, my 3 x great grandfather, and was’ banished for life’. In other words, he was deported to Australia. A real outcast. You might think that would be the end of his story as far as my research was concerned. You would be wrong. There were a multitude of records kept on prisoners sent away. Here are a few of them:  Australian Convict Transportation Registry UK Prison Hulk Registers and Letter Books NSW and Tasmania, Australia, Convict Musters NSW Australian Convict Indents NSW Australian Colonial Secretarys' Papers NSW Australian Convict Register of Conditional and Absolute Pardons Tasmania, Australia, Deeds of Land Grants    From those, a story started to emerge. Convicted in January 1811 to be sent to Van Dieman’s Land, James was imprisoned in E

In the future, our descendants will have access to a wealth of information about us and the sort of life we led from the internet and from our use of social media. But how can we find out information about our ancestors, the type of information not recorded on official records or censuses? Very simply, by researching and viewing the ‘social media’ of our ancestors’ day  -  newspapers.  From big events to local gossip, that’s where everything was chronicled. The British Newspaper Archives have newspapers from the 1700s-2000s online. That’s where I found and read a murder trial report from the High Court in Edinburgh in the Scottish Chronicle dated June 1811. The murder victim was my 3 x great grandfather, Alexander McAra. The defendant was his brother, James, my 3 x great uncle. The report goes into great detail. The circumstances leading up to the offence, graphic detail of the ‘attack’, the witnesses’ statements, the judge’s summation and verdict. Much more detail than we would ge

If Genealogy had a ‘Prime Directive’ it should be ‘Do not take other people’s information at face value.’ This is something that I'm sure everyone is guilty of at at some point. What do I mean by other people’s information?  Well, family stories for starters. The ones that get ‘passed down’ with no real evidence to back them up. One that springs to mind is the notion that the Stepeks originated in Sweden. I think Martin’s sister once saw a portrait in Sweden of a man who bore a great resemblance to their father. That added to the story or may even have started it!  Research has found that Swedes did settle in the area where the Stepeks lived in Poland, but not at the right time in history. DNA testing of family members has thrown up a small percentage of Scandinavian DNA – but that seems to be linked to the other side of the family. The lesson? Go where the research takes you – don’t go trying to find connections where they may not exist. Copying information willy-nilly from

Nowadays education is seen as being for everyone, no matter their sex, background or age and is something we take for granted. But, of course, it hasn’t always been like that. Looking at the 1851 census for William Johnston, one of my great grandfathers, who in 1841 had been a grocer,  I find he is now a stonebreaker. A bit of a job change there – but what is possibly more surprising to us nowadays, is that his 11 year old son William is also a stonebreaker!  His 14 year old son is an apprentice shoemaker. Both boys are still attending Sunday School as they are also described as ‘Sabbath Scholars’.   Their younger brother Thomas, aged 8, is both a Day and a Sabbath scholar. It was not until that Education (Scotland) Act of 1872, that school became compulsory for all 5-13 year olds. Thomas seems to have been fortunate in attending day school and seems to have been in the minority of children in my family tree at that time, who were not listed as scholars of any kind. Below we can see

Sometimes you are lucky when you research and find the people you are looking for are where you expect them to be. Sometimes they are not,  and you have to ask yourself where, logically, they can be.  My great grandfather John McAra was ‘out of place’ twice. But first, a bit of background. John McAra (GGF) died in 1910. His death certificate gave the name of his father as John McAra and that of his mother as Jean Gregory, both deceased.   His birth notification in the parish records for New Monklands in February 1827, confirmed the name of his parents, but also stated “illegitimate”. What was also strange was that his baptism took place six months after he was born. So were his parents not married by this stage?                        (Source: OPR records on Scotlands People) When I looked for a marriage certificate for his parents, there appeared to be none at all, either around the time of his birth or subsequently. What I did find was a marriage for his father (2XGGF) to someone

Of all the old family photos I have come across over the years, this one of my dad, John McAra, as a young man with his mum, Christina Walker, is one of my favourites. I have no idea at all how old my dad is in the photo, but I’m guessing he would be in his early twenties, so it would have been taken around the mid to late 1930s. That would make his mum in her mid sixties, which seems about right. The original photo was, of course, in black and white. My dad looks quite dapper in his shirt, jacket and trousers, my grandmother very smart in what might have been her ‘best’ dress as she looks to be wearing her 'best shoes' too. He is holding on to her, which is lovely to see, and both are smiling quite naturally. I like what I see. It looks as though they had a good relationship. I recently used Ancestry’s colourising tool on the photograph. I’m not sure if my dad’s jacket really was that blue, but it’s very dapper. And my grandmother’s dress, navy with white spots, reminds me

There’s probably not a day goes by, when I don’t think about my late parents. My dad, John McAra died in 1984, when I was just 27. Fortunately, I had my mum with me a lot longer. Helen Young Anderson, died in 2003 at the age of 88. Most people I’m sure can relate to the “Oh I wish Mum/Dad were still here so I could tell/show them this”, “ If only Mum and Dad could have met their grandchildren”, “ I wonder what Mum/Dad would have thought of this.” These are things which have occurred since their deaths and we will never know what they would have thought. They simply weren’t here to voice their thoughts. But while they were here, while they were alive, they could have voiced their opinions, they could have answered my questions, they could have told me stories. But, like many ‘children’, I never asked them. So I’d like to meet my Mum and Dad. And let’s imagine I have a limited amount of questions I can ask. These questions have to be about things they actually experienced or people they

 Welcome to my blog!  I recently decided to get involved with Amy Johnson Crow's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" project. Every week you get a 'prompt' e-mailed to you and you write a piece based on the prompt. Sounds easy?? Hmmm. It certainly gets you thinking and more importantly allows you to reflect on your research and what you have discovered. And to share it. I'm a bit late in starting so my first few posts appeared all at once. Thank you for reading them.