McMinn Mystery Deepens...

[Daisy Loo]

True...

My initial objection when I first read your post, was ah, but they were all on MC's, in England...but it's on the BC as well...and you're right...I don't know...

He was a pensioner in 1864...so we would be looking for records before then anyway.  But being a pensioner, the army must have paid him that until his death...and then, would they have continued to give his wife a pension?

Still, we have his approx birth now, and his death...birth 1807, death 1878...

Does anyone have access to Scotland's people...to look up his birth?

[Daisy Loo]

Dimps, that knowledge is good and handy!  From what I understand there were a lot of Irish in this area...so it wouldn't be a long stretch to think that people were connected.  It would be more likely if you were coming over from Ireland to live in the UK to go and stay with people that you knew.

[MonicaL]

I looked at SP before, the only possibilities show slightly later (searching 1802-10) anywhere in Scotland with a wilcards (m*cm?n*):

1809 - THOMAS MCMINNa & JEAN CAMPBELL in Rerrick, KIRKCUDBRIGHT
1810 - DAVID MCMIN in Twynholm, KIRKCUDBRIGHT
1810 - JOHN MCMINN & IRVING in Borgue, KIRKCUDBRIGHT

[Daisy Loo]

hmm. strange.  Mind you, I don't know that he was born in Scotland...

[MonicaL]

Remember that in Scotland not all births were registered (it cost money  ). If Scottish, Alexander's family may also have belonged to a breakaway group etc. The OPRs are only for the established Church of Scotland (Presbyterian). Also, the other major factor is that registers have not all survived the test of time, many have been lost or destroyed over the years. Just because we can't find his birth/christening details, other siblings may show...if we knew the names of parents to be able to search by!

[Daisy Loo]

There's another weird entry at TNA...

It says the date of volunteering was 1854, but the date of the document, I think, is 1835... - never mind!  It's for the Royal Navy!

That other TNA doc that you looked up, MOnica...can you remember any of the info on it?

You know what, I don't think I'm gonna find anything more on this mysterious Alexander McMinn

[MonicaL]

This is what I have already looked up at the TNA:

1. W0 97/ 1248 - covering the period 1760 -1854. This is where the retiring Alexander shows in 1850. These records have been indexed on line, you then have to view the films at the TNA.

2. W0 97/ 1336 - covering the period 1855 - 1872. These are original documents that have to been gone through in a box (records sorted alphabetically)

Now, apart from the 1850 Alexander in No.1, there were no other showing. Always the possibility that his records may have been misfiled (I haven't searche the 'misfiled box(es) or you could take the search out to 1878 when he died (although I would think this other Alexander may have been picked up by the researcher you hired to find the Alexander, husband of Alice, whose records would likely have been in the next series from the ones I looked at.

3. I also searched under WO 116/ 131-36 which are the Pension Admission Books for the Royal Artillery and for pensions awarded on grounds of disability. The films I looked at covered 1857 -64...before I ran out of time!

[Daisy Loo]

Okay...was there an option to search pre-1857? for WO116 / 131-36?

If Alexander was born in 1807, he would have signed up perhaps say when he was 22...that would bring him to 1829...20 years say in the army...1849...

What I don't get, which has just dawned on me, is how they were still living in the RA Barracks in Clonmel, if he was a pensioner. (Birth record of Emily Jane.)

[MonicaL]

He signed up in Sheffield in 1828, so he had around 22 years service. You can search the WO 16 series up or down the dates I searched, just ran out of time to go earlier than I did. I did eight years with a good couple of hundred names per year to go individually though. I left the TNA with these