RootsChat.Com

I have spent years trying to track down what became of my grandfather's 8 siblings and have accounted for six only.  Recently, however, I learnt that one, Frances Margaret ASHE, who had been present in the family household in 1911 Belfast census, aged 30, had died as Frances Margaret BLOOMER and been buried as a 'widow' alongside two unmarried siblings, rather implying that she had no children to bury her.

Searches have been made for an ASHE/BLOOMER marriage without success.  I cannot imagine that Frances would not have actually been married. 

A recent find was a Telephone Directory entry for Mrs F M BLOOMER at 4 Roslyn Ave., Bangor.
Would anyone be able to find me a husband for Frances, maybe using an Electoral Register for earlier than 1949?  Better still, a marriage between 1912 and 1949...

It has been disappointing so far to find that, of the 9 ASHE family members of that generation, only my grandfather had offspring and the assumption is that the two other 'missing' girls, namely Margaret Jane and Mabel left Belfast for Canada or US perhaps, the eldest brother having gone to Montreal in 1890, married, but had no issue.  Two registered marriages for a Margaret J ASHE have been sent for, but neither is mine!

I am based in England, so NI records not so accessible to me.
Chilis

Ah, Taylorian, am I to assume you are a descendant of John Taylor?

I was amazed that your post above was of 'yesterday', as I have not had Internet access for some time - whilst my daughter was building me a house -  and having had a new computer installed last evening, what should pop up but your posting!

It is actually all of 6 years since I was delving into my gt. grandfather's association with J. P Seddon and John Taylor, so would like maybe to return to the theme over this winter.

I have no information of any significance to add to previous postings, but would like to be in contact with you on this one, so will shortly send a Personal Message.  In the meantime, thank you for your post and the connection to some later pictures of the Hotel.  I have to say that I'm somewhat under-whelmed with its appearance in view of many other attractive buildings that have gone before, but presumably it was built as an opportunist money-spinner at the time.

Chilis

My mother, Isabella Cooper MacKINNON, (b.1913) always talked about Helensburgh being her home town, though her birth reg. gave her as born Greenock. I know my maternal grandmother hailed from Helensburgh however and many of her family were there until the 1930’s.

On a recent trip to Helensburgh to search the Directories, I could find no reference to my grandparents, John and Annie Laurie MacKINNON.
I am therefore assuming that, after their marriage in 1912 in Helensburgh, they in fact lived in Greenock. My mother was their only child.   

John MacKINNON was an Electrical Storekeeper.  I presume this meant he had a shop.  Annie L was a schoolteacher, so she may have been teaching in Greenock.  I do know that by about 1920/21, the grandparents were in Rangoon, Burma and John returned from there in 1927 listed as ‘Merchant 1st Class’ on the return trip. I would be very interested to understand why they went there, as during their 7 year stay in Burma, my mother had been left at a boarding school in Edinburgh from the age of 7.  What a dreadful experience for a child......

Has anyone access to Directories for Greenock for the period 1912 to 1920 or so, who could give me a firm location for the family.  Sadly, I didn’t get to Greenock during my recent trip.

Obviously, it would be helpful to understand why they opted to go to Burma and leave my mother behind for all those years of her childhood.
Chilis

I'm another whose gt.grandfather may have been working at Ardgowan House as a Gardener.  Dugald McKINNON died in Inverkip in 1907, of TB I think, but I haven't found where he was buried.  His wife, Mary, afterwards seems to have joined one of the sons in Glasgow, dying there in 1930.
Chilis