Scoonie/Leven Marriage Look Up Please

[bones58]

Hi

Can anyone help me?  I'm looking for a marriage for Elizabeth Trail and William Cowan c.1858  in Scoonie/Leven .

 William was Irish and I think he came from Bangor in County Down.

Elizabeth was born in Scoonie in 1836, her parents were David Trail and Ann Meldrum. She and William Cowan had one child (Henry) in Leven in 1859 before they moved South to Suffolk.

Bones

[tommacgregor]

Hello Bones,

Elizabeth TRAIL is not a very common name and so you may be interested to read my postings about the Elizabeth (Betsy) Trail who married Alexander WESTWATER, and then how the name appeared again as the daughter of James Westwater and Margaret Danks. The family appears to have settled down around Auhterderran in Fife. As you would probably know, Leven is only a short distance away from Auchterderran, where I spent my early childhood.

Please don't be afraid to get back to me if you would want a bit more help.

Kind Regards,


Tom.

[bones58]

Hi Tom,

I've only recently been concentrating on my Scottish connections as I've always found it difficult to know where to look for information. Now Ancestry have put the Scottish census returns online it's helped me fill in a few gaps. Everything else I have has been taken from the LDS site.

I know Elizabeth Trail was the daughter of David as he appears on the marriage certificate for her second marriage, this helped me trace the family on the IGI, which confirmed the birthplace as Scoonie.

Not knowing Scotland at all I'm finding it difficult to relate to the different parishes  in terms of distance from each other.  ie, David's father James was married in Kettle but David was born in Scoonie. The IGI doesn't have a James Trail born in Kettle so I don't know where to look for him!!

Any help or advice would be gratefully received.

Bones

[MonicaL]

Bones

A good site for maps of counties and parishes within the counties is this one:

www.scotlandsfamily.com/county-map.htm
www.scotlandsfamily.com/parish-maps.htm

Hopefully help you get your bearings 

Monica

[MonicaL]

Not seeing a marriage on SP for them in Scotland 1855-61, and that was searching for a Wil* C*w*n and any first name Tr*l*   

Monica

[bones58]

Hi Monica,

Thanks for the web sites, at least they will give me an idea of how close the parishes are.

I'm assuming that Elizabeth and William married in the Scoonie area as that is where Elizabeth was born and where her son Henry was born in 1859.
 
The 1861 census shows them as husband and wife, but she did have three children out of wedlock after William died in 1867 so possibly they never married in the first place !!

Bones 

[sancti]

If you check Henry's birth record on SP it may give the place and date of marriage of his parents

[MonicaL]

Sancti

Unfortunately it wasn't until the early 1860s that parents' marriage info began to be included on birth certs - pity...

Monica 

[MonicaL]

...Although, picking up on Sancti's point about Henry's BC, it might still provide some clues from how the parents' details were written up. Normally a married couple would show as William Cowan and Elizabeth Cowan, maiden surname Trail. If parents weren't married, but father attended the registration of the child's birth, you would expect to find that the entry showed the child as illegitimate and parents as William Cowan and Elizabeth Trail.

Monica