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Hi Gervaise,

It's an interesting possibility that there is a connection, but I haven't added to my research for a while. It will take me a while to reacquaint my mind with the family but, to be going on with, I know that Thomas Smith bn c1784 was not born in Renfrewshire, and that he married Agnes Hutchinson c 1803. Agnes appears to have died before 1841 so I don't know where she was from, but their eldest child, William, was born in Paisley.

I'm not going to have much time for the next week, but I'll try to remember to look into this more after that. We'll keep in touch.

Marion

Hi Satis,

I take it you are talking about the photo of Lydia Frost nee Sumner? I should have it on the computer somewhere, so will hunt it out and post it.

Manui

I am working on a project about Ovingham and district men who died in WW1 and WW2. Although Frank Gilchrist is not mentioned on the War Memorial, I am including him because of the plaque in the church. If you would be willing to share any of your research on Frank with this project, that would be very helpful. There are 26 names on the war memorial, 13 war graves in the cemetery (only a few of them matching names on the war memorial), and at least 8 other men mentioned on family headstones, so there is quite a bit to do for a small village.

Thankyou if you feel able to share anything, but just reading this thread has been good.

That's interesting, Joe. I wonder if we are looking at two different pages, as I know that people are sometimes enumerated on more than one page. The one I am looking at (via Scotlands People) definitely has Margaret as Thomas's wife, with nothing that I can see to separate them. I cannot magnify the page as I had to change to 'direct download' to look at viewed images - for some reason the Java image wasn't coming up on my screen today. However, I think the page number might be 28, and the number in the first column is 101; the reference is given as 573/03 002/03 023. Does this differ from your image?

Whatever, thankyou for taking an interest in a posting from such a long time ago - I had forgotten that I had posted it and, eventually, the 1861 Census came up on Scotland's People, so I was able to make progress. Despite the Smith surname, it has been relatively easy to identify them in Paisley. Thomas was probably the most difficult as his second marriage and his death were in Glasgow so I wasn't sure if I had the right ones for a while.  It has certainly turned out to be easier than identifying Stewarts in Glasgow, which presumably reflects the difference in population size of the two places.

Manui

Thankyou Joe - that was interesting but, in the intervening 16 months, some further research brought up another Thomas and Margaret - by coincidence of very similar ages. This Thomas was working as a tailor (which seems to have been a profession going down the generations), he was 33 and his wife 31, and they were living in Ross or Moss Street, Paisley. I think Moss Street is the more likely, as his father was living in another house in that street.

I can't remember how much I had found out by August 05, but the fact that the Moss Street family had a son of 15 might have put you off thinking they could be the right ones - Thomas had been married before and 15 year old William (named after his Smith grandfather after the general Scottish pattern) was from that marriage.

Thanks for putting me on to the other Thomas and Margaret Smith family anyway - you never know, they might turn out to be cousins!

Regards,
Manui