Roots, shoots and stories

 I have written about my 2 x great grandparents, William Boag and Sarah Diamond, on previous occasions. Irish born Sarah had always been a bit of a mystery, since her origins were obscure and the fact that she disappears from records after 1841. Her husband William remarried and I have his death certificate, certified by his second 'wife' (more missing records as I can't find any record of this marriage either!), who supplied the names of both of William's parents (Thomas Boag and Mary McNeil) and his father's profession - Royal Navy Seaman. William had been born in Greenock in the late 1700s. The name Boag is quite a common one in and around that area and names like William and Thomas were common too. There is no record of a marriage between a Thomas Boag (and various spellings) and a Mary McNeil anywhere in Scotland. However, there is one William who seems to be born around the right time to a Thomas Boag and a Janet Alexander.  So various scenarios are possible i...

 My great-grandfather, John McAra, was born on the 19th of February 1827, the illegitimate son of John McAra (27), a hammerman at the local ironworks and Jane Gregory, aged 17. John and Jane never married - nor could they, as John had gotten married three months earlier to an Elizabeth Gray! Elizabeth herself gave birth to a daughter, Mary, in the May of 1827. It does not take a mathematician to work out that Jane and Elizabeth were both pregnant at the same time! It is easy to build a narrative around the circumstances that John found himself in - two women expecting his child, marrying one of them while both were pregnant. Was he coerced into the marriage, with or without Elizabeth's parents knowing about Jane? Whatever situation he found himself in, he did not shy away away from it. He is named as the father to my great grandfather on the parish baptismal record and who of course, carries his name. Interestingly, John's brother Thomas, married Elizabeth Gray's sister Mar...