BOWIE/CRAIG Renfrewshire...Brickwall!

[lynbowie]

Many thanks to all helpers. I can discount only William Bowie/Crawford- we have No Williams at all and they tend not to be Low church- and Allan Bowie/Cassels who I worked on at length because I thought they were Johns parents. I will work with the Govern couple, and the suggested other 2 couples as a John and Allan are possible.

I found 4 offspring to Allan and Agnes Craig - the brickwallers, then they just dropped off the earth!
Robert.b. 1787
Robert. b. 1788
John. b     1789 confirmed by death cert. 1860
Allan b.    1792 confirmed by death cert.  1863

There must have been more children before and after Allan. They were v. young when they married.
Lyn.

[lynbowie]

Liz,
I took the info from John Bowie's death reg on Scotlandspeople. It said Johnstone churchyard for burial place. There is also a boook of MIs for Johnstone which gives names and inscriptions and stone no. I think it was no.90, I will have to check. perhaps they used to refer to the Elderslie cemetary as Johnstone churchyard. I know all these Bowies OPRs were from Paisley Low.

[seekthem]

Below an extract from talking scots.com I found for High Parish Johnstone - will try and visit but earliest would be end of next week.

Talking Scots
(I phoned the minister (a Mrs. McCool) to make an appointment, but she said she "didn't know where the Lair Books were". Alas, she didn't seem too inclined to find out where they could be, so i just dropped it. I've been told that the previous minister, a Rev Randolph Scott, knew where they were and was more than willing to help.
The records are, i believe, the "Extracts from Lair Book of Johnstone Parish Church". They're not indexed, written mostly chronologically, are rather fragile, and also a bit difficult to read.

I knew it wasn't an ernormous graveyard, so i eventually just went to the church with my cameras on the off-chance i could find the one i was looking for - but soon saw that there was very little hope. Whilst there are a good number of stones still upright (and tablets on the walls) still quite legible, very, very many MIs were on their backs. This meant that the grass was growing over most of them, and because they are lying flat are being more quickly eroded by the elements. I lifted the grass off many, and wondered why a lot of them had been scored and chipped at some time - 3 hours later i got the answer.

From the front i heard the sound of lawnmowers, intermingled with bangs & crunching noises - they were certainly cutting the grass, but in the process were taking chunks out of gravestones too! Those sit-on machines were going right over everything that was near ground level.
Got chatting to the men after one of them found a camera case i'd dropped. I thanked him, and felt i should explain what i was doing - so i did, and the expression of relief on his face was a picture. They'd had me down as a church spy checking up on their work with a camera! They then took a rather long break - but it was a scorcher, and they did look like they needed a rest.

I knew it was the possibility that there never ever was a gravestone - a lot of folk were buried in "common ground" in many cemeteries with nothing to mark their resting place. After 7 hours i still hadn't found the headstone, but at least i did get some pics of a lovely church and its grounds on a lovely sunny day)

The above is the extract
Liz

[lynbowie]

Many thanks for the effort Liz. It seems that a visit to Johnstone may be a waste of time. I have looked at it on google earth, but it seems completely rebuilt. Some of the street names as mentioned in census and death records are still there, but I doubt any old buildings are left!
Would you think that Johnstone churchyard was the High church?
There WAS definitely a stone with an inscription, but I will get the exact details later tonight. I will have to dig it out. It may well be path gravel by now!
I was wondering about the various taxes i.e Hearth tax/poll tax, horse tax, Directories etc. My other thought was that the OPRs fer the periods in question are missing. What are the chances? I don't know what records exist for Johnstone in the 1700s.
Lyn.

[Gavvyn]

Hello
Just joined this. I have Allan Bowie, the Blacksmith and his wife Agnes Craig as direct ancestors too on my mother's side. Her gt-grandmother was Margaret Johnstone, b. 1842 at Johnstone, youngest child of Thomas Johnstone, Cotton Spinner and his wife Jane (Jean) Bowie b.c.1802 at Johnstone. Jane died 1886, aged 84, at Johnstone, Ren, her parents listed on death record (according to her son, the Informant) as Allan Bowie, Blacksmith & Agnes Craig. So she was one of the younger children it would appear.

I did find Allan Bowie, Blacksmith & Agnes Craig in the Register of Sasines (land ownership) for Renfrewshire, where it refers to Robert Craig (Agnes's father?) owning some land property in Johnstone; and an original estate type record found at Glasgow City Archives [which includes Renfrewshire material] for the Houston of Johnstone family (the big landowners of the day there) for Robert Craig too.

I am interested to know how you came up with your extensions from Agnes Craig?  Hopefully someone with an emigrant ancestor (mine stayed here, I live in Glasgow), say a child of Allan Bowie, would have knowledge passed down the generations, of where and who Allan Bowie came from. There is potential for more actual research on this couple, I know that, so I may look again - it was years ago I did the original research.

There are some old buildings still there in Johnstone town. The old High Church graveyard does, as you know, only have a few stones legible and looks like most were buried in an unmarked area.

[Gavvyn]

also just noticed seekthem's advice that a lair book of Johnstone High Church exists, the whereabouts known by a former Minister? Is this able to be searched, do you know?
Thanks

[lynbowie]

Hello Gavvyn,
Delighted to hear from you.  At last someone who still lives in Scotland who has not emigrated! Your ancestor is a new link in the chain. I am trying to find out about the origins of Allan and Agnes Craig. I now live in England so have some access to records but not as much as you have up there. Where was the property Allan Buie owned? I simply cant find out where they went, or how many children they had, or where they died. The only further info I have is Eaglesham.  A lot of Bowies born in Johnstone were also registered as born in Eaglesham. Was this included in the Johnstone area?

I have found connections on the female side through Buchanan to Jane /Jean Thomson who married (Allans son) John( my ancestor)to George and Ludovic Houston. The name George Houston Bowie appears in a number of lines.
I think details of the Monumental Inscriptions for Abbey are available from the Renfrewshire F.H.S.
They offer a number of booklets.    Lyn.

[Gavvyn]

Hello Lyn

The property (some small amount of land and a house I'd imagine) was actually in Johnstone, or what became Johnstone, c.1786 as the town was, as you may know, purposefully laid out on farmland etc - it wasn't a village that grew into a town. So plots of ground were leased/sold to incoming families to populate the original small area. Therefore. most of our Johnstone-based ancestors would have come from either the original more rural verging Renfrewshire areas or even further afield maybe.

I can look out what I have and scan it to you if you want - I'd need your e-mail address.  I would like too to find the parentage of Allan Bowie and I found some new info this week in old newspapers that refer to Allan Bowie, Blacksmith at Quarrelton and other Bowies - I will reply more detail to you in a day or two. Sometimes going through other family ie supposed siblings of Allan, can come up with evidence. 

Gavin

[lynbowie]

Hello Gavin,
That would be great. Eaglesham was also laid out as a new town. Greenend , Quarrelton was where John, his son, was in the 1841 census. I also found the Apprentice records of the fees paid and to whom they were apprenticed. It may have been in the National Archives or Scottish Archives Network. There are bits and pieces in S.C.A.N. There is an Allan and a William Bowie/Buie, colliers, in the poll tax roll.( There are 27 Craigs and 5 Johnstones). I cant confirm Allans date of birth 1762, I picked it up from another( Andrew) site! He would not have been allowed to marry till he finished his apprenticeship. If he started about 14, it nay have been 5yrs or more before he could marry.
There is also an interesting article on the Scottish Mining Network of a mine disaster in 1818 at Quarrelton and how a Bowie came to the rescue. They all lived nearby.
How do I send a private message to you with my email address?
Lyn.