Mohamddin Peterson of Liverpool

[AMBLY]

The 'synchronicity' to Kipling / Professor Peterson is very intriguing....

The Professor was Peter PETERSON 1847 - 1899, who was born in Scotland; his father was John PETERSEN and mother Grace Mountford ANDERSON, they had abt 13 children. Peter was the Professor of Sanskrit at the Elphinstone College in Bombay. As a Commoner of Balliol College in 1870, he  was awarded The Boden Sanskrit Scholarship, and spent much time in India.  Three of his 4 children (4 that I know of) by wife Agnes CHRISTALL (married 1872 in Glasgow)  were born there.  His brother, William PETERSON (1856-1921) was for many years the head of McGill University in Montreal Canada, though he eventually returned to England. William's obituary in 1921 said he  (so therefore Peter too?) was from a mixed Scottish & Norwegian ancestry.  The PETERSON family was from Edinburgh and earlier than that, the generation of Peter's grandparents were from Wall in Shetland - not seen any other evidence of a Norwegian as yet. Peter's grandparents were Revd. Peter PETERSON and Barbara MANN.

Have collected & googled up a fair bit of information on the Peter PETERSON's, the above is a summary.  Many of them had "notable" lives - and I am absolutely busting to know who the father of Mohamad Din/John PETERSON is stated to be on the 1922 marriage certificate! 

Cheers
AMBLY

added: actaully there is other evidence of Nordic ancestry - one or Peter's brothers and one of his uncles was named Magnus PETERSON.

[sgrollitt]

Wow! Great find. I'll let you know as soon as I do who Mohamed's father was.

[ukdescendant]

" He arrived back in Liverpool in March 1940 on the Georgic. "Gas masks issued to all passengers and DBS as necessary". What was DBS I wonder? Mohamed Din Peterson, 90 Upper Canning Street, fireman. "


Strangely on the Luisitania entry tonight there is a link to a website where DBS is mentioned , it states that it means Deported British seaman .

Sounds reasonable to me.

UKD

[Ruskie]

Sorry everyone I have nothing constructive to add but this is just fascinating and I too am dying to know how it resolves. Could it be that Mohamed took the surname of his friend Prof Peter Peterson who he knew back in India, but there may not be any family connection.  He probably got sick of having to spell his Indian surname and thought it might make life easier to be Peterson ... 

... or have I missed something?  ...

Added later: Now thinking about the connection to the Kipling story which was published in 1888 (when was Mohamed born?  ) ... now my imagination is running away with me and I wonder if Mohamed read this story then decided to 'borrow' the names of the people in it?

What an interesting character.

Can't wait for that certificate .... 

[AMBLY]

Hi

Is this the website?
http://www.rmslusitania.info/pages/third_class/index.html
it says : D.B.S. (this possibly means deported British Seaman)

On this website is another possible explanation (the writer has a 'clipped' manner of 'speech'):
http://www.mercantilemarine.org/showthread.php?t=446
"Considering that all Merchant Seamen during Wartime Pay the responsibility of Government, Shipping Companies, etc. was absolved. All Articles of Agreement ceased and merchant seamen were declared DBS, Destitute British Seamen. Before the vessel settled on the Bottom. (Find your own way home Sallies, Red Cross) "

Hi Ruskie
Me n' you both     Peter Peterson was dead in 1899, at which time Mohamed Din was by all acounts only about 9 years old....

Peter Peterson had, in the 1891 Census, only 4 children - 3 girls and 1 boy. Only the youngest was born in England.
The boy was John Carlos Kennedy PETERSON born in India 1876 and only 15 in 1891, died Wales 1955.  This is such an interesting family - would be so neat to find a link to them with Mohamad Din.

I'd be really interested to know how Mohamed Din looked too, his visage & complexion/coloring? English/Scottish? Indian? A bit of both?

Cheers
AMBLY

[AMBLY]

I have to fess up - a lot of British men in India formed intimate relationships with Indian women (and often both parties were high standing in their respective societies).....producing children  who were sometimes introduced into English society, so I wondered if Peter......even though he appears to come from quite a pious background and would have been married at the time....

While - we - wait :  I was involved in this other thread too,  also about a mystery Indian born man with very good connections to English society (and to the Indian as it happens) - we were lucky enough to have a descendant of one of the branches join in with some very interesting relevations - page 2 of the thread is facinating!
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,325850.0.html

Cheers
AMBLY

[Ruskie]

Oh good, I thought it was just my imagination running away with me.  I really like your theory about illegitimacy. Sounds possible date wise too.

Sgrollitt, I hope you're getting this marriage cert sent by priority mail - we can't wait verylong!

I'll have a look at the link to the other thread too Ambly (thanks  .

[twageos]

> Peter's grandparents were from Wall in Shetland - not seen any other evidence of a Norwegian as yet.

> added: actaully there is other evidence of Nordic ancestry - one or Peter's brothers and one of his uncles was named
> Magnus PETERSON.

Most -son named Shetlanders at that time would have considered themselves to be descendants of Norse people, and many would not have thought of themselves as Scottish.

There's a photo of Revd. Peter Peterson in my g-grandparents' photo album - you can find a copy at

http://www.bayanne.info/Shetland/showmedia.php?mediaID=108&medialinkID=108

The caption on it - written by my g-aunt Christina Jamieson - says "Progenitor of many professors". Originally I wondered whether that meant literally or that he'd been a schoolmaster and his pupils had gone on to great things. So it was fascinating to discover that several of his grandsons had been professors (I'm not sure if the unfortunate Magnus Peterson who died of choking at a meal in Christchurch, NZ, where he was organist, was a professor or not).

I too have been looking around for info. about this family and would love to know if there are other photos around. Clearly, there are other living descendants (including a Henry Magnus), but as for Mohamddin, I have no idea - there are plenty of other Petersons, some with an Indian connection, the name's common in enough in the British Isles, so someone would have to have /some/ reason to say "Danish". But perhaps that cert. will show.

[sgrollitt]

I rang the Liverpool Register Office this morning and they have a backlog of work - hence my certificates have not yet arrived. Sorry for the delay - I'm as keen as you. Thank you for making this a very interesting topic and I hope it won't be too long before I can post some more details.