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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Topic started by: Richsmith on Monday 04 February 19 12:54 GMT (UK)
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Hi everyone
Having real problems with 3x great grandfather, John Richardson.
I first found him in the 1851 census for Birmingham along with his wife Martha and their children. He is a machinist, I think he probably made pens. He married Martha Haines In Gloucestershire on 10 December 1837.
Try as I might I can’t find any record of him before this. I know from the census he was born in Scotland in 1803 but that’s about it.
Can anyone help?
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Try FreeCEN for the 1841 Census transcription.......
Longtree Gloucestershire
John Richardson 35 engineer born Scotland.
Does the marriage record give his father's name ?(1837 FreeBMD)
ev
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I think George... does it show if he’s with his wife Martha at that address?
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Yes , Martha with children(?) George & Jane.
https://freecen1.freecen.org.uk/cgi/search.pl
ev
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Well that’s more than I’ve found in a dogs age!!! Just need to find his parents in Scotland now...
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In 1851 you have John Richardson, aged 48, in Aston near Birmingham with wife Martha and children George, Jean, John, James, Margaret, Catherine and Thomas. In 1861 he says he was 58.
Assuming that his age is accurate, this means that he was more likely born in 1802 than in 1803, because the census was held at the end of March, and would only have had his 48th birthday in 1851, and his 58th birthday in 1861, if he was born between 1 January and late March.
There are no surviving records of the birth of a John Richardson, father George, between 1801 and 1804. There is one in Edinburgh St Cuthberts in 1800, and one in Coldingham in 1805. There could of course be others whose baptism records have not survived, and these could include your one.
Unfortunately I can't find him in a later census to see if he gave a more precise place of birth than just 'Scotland', or if he was being visited by a sibling, niece or nephew who might provide a clue.
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Thanks for trying 👍
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Richsmith, what was the order of John and Martha's children's names? Just wondering if they could have used any form of Scottish naming pattern (see here for example www.halmyre.abel.co.uk/Family/naming.htm).
The entry for a John to a George and Jean Andrew in Edinburgh 1800, see that John also had a daughter Jean? In Scotland, Jane and Jean are internchangeable first names.
Was there any occupation showing on John's parish register entry for his father George?
There are two George Richardsons both married to a Jean (McFarlane and Andrew) and having children at the same time :-\ As mentioned, this is just a possibility that there is a connection to either of these couples.
Monica
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Hi Monica, thanks for the reply. I’ve been looking at the George/Jean connection. John & Marthas first two children were George and Jane (sometimes Jean) so I’m willing to take a leap of faith that this is him. Also when I searched ancestry for this family, someone’s tree mentioned that his death date was after 1835... this is when he left Scotland for Gloucester and met Martha. I think this is him
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Never trust anything you find on Ancestry unless it's an image of an original document. Especially don't trust online trees. They're great as a starting point but you need to verify every connection to make sure you're not following someone else up a wrong tree.
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I know, I’ve used ancestry for quite a few years and know the pitfalls well. I’ve also had to make a few leaps of faith based on hunches which have usually proved correct. My mum was a smith, my dad a smith, my mum’s mum was born a smith, my mum’s grandfather is a smith, her dad was a Smith. Plus they had a propensity for marrying their cousins! Sometimes you just have to read between the lines 🙄
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I know, I’ve used ancestry for quite a few years and know the pitfalls well. I’ve also had to make a few leaps of faith based on hunches which have usually proved correct. My mum was a smith, my dad a smith, my mum’s mum was born a smith, my mum’s grandfather is a smith, her dad was a Smith. Plus they had a propensity for marrying their cousins! Sometimes you just have to read between the lines 🙄
Ouch! I have lots of cousin marriages, but not, thank goodness, with popular surnames, and mostly in Scotland where the civil records are so much better than they are in the rest of the UK.
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Now I think I’ve narrowed it down I need to search a bit more to see if George and Jean are Johns parents. Are the Scottish records arranged in a similar fashion to the English ones? I don’t even know where to start 🤔
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Now I think I’ve narrowed it down I need to search a bit more to see if George and Jean are Johns parents. Are the Scottish records arranged in a similar fashion to the English ones? I don’t even know where to start 🤔
Not quite sure what you mean, but start at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk.
The statutory civil records are far better than the English/Welsh/Irish ones.
- a Scottish birth certificate tells you the date and place of the parents' marriage.
- a Scottish marriage certificate tells you the maiden names of the couple's mothers.
- a Scottish death certificate tells you the names of the parents of the decease, including the deceased's mother's maiden name (assuming that the information knew all this, of course).
They are also more accessible, because you can download instantly an image of a historic Scottish certificate at a quarter of the cost of getting an English one, for which you have to wait a few days before it arrives.
However you are really looking for information before the start of civil registration, so I won't go into that in detail.
The main difference between the Scottish and English records is that the vast majority of the Scottish ones are available in one place, www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. All the surviving registers of the Church of Scotland were collected in Edinburgh at the start of civil registration, and they form the bulk of the church registers at SP.
SP also arranged to make the surviving Catholic registers available, and they are the next largest set of church records available on SP.
Lastly there are many of the registers of all the assorted other churches including the Free Churches, most of which are now in the National Records of Scotland.
The records that are missing from SP are
- Episcopalian/Anglican - their surviving registers are in the individual churches, or in diocesan, university or local archives, and I have yet to come across any sort of list or catalogue telling me which Episcopalian registers survive and where they are.
- a small number of registers of dissenting churches whose congregations have not given permission for their registers to be made available on SP.
- registers that have been lost. Occasionally one of these turns up, but this is rare.
- non-Christian records.
- any other registers not in the care of the National Records of Scotland.
There are lists of which registers for which parishes/churches survive and are included in SP at https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/guides/church-registers
However just because a register has survived does not mean that it will contain every baptism or marriage that occurred in that parish. There are several reasons why the record of an event has not survived, including
- the parents did not bother to have the child baptised
- the parents did not ensure that the baptism was recorded in the register
- the clerk neglected to enter the information in the register
- the register was damaged
Sometimes the information in the church registers is a bit sparse - I've seen baptism records with no information in them other than the father's name, and marriage records occasionally list only the groom's name and nothing else.
The really important point to remember is just because there is only one possible candidate in the records does not mean that this is the person you are looking for.
Does that help?
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Absolutely, thank you very much 👍