Is "Meek" a nickname?

[chinakay]

Hi all, I have a Janet Soutar b 1829 to James Soutar and Meek Mitchell, IGI. James was actually married to Mary Mitchell, although I can't find a formal marriage. Is this a nickname for Mary?

Odd one 

Cheers,
China

[Ruskie]

No, not according to my Dictionary of First Names.

There are Dutch forms of Mary - Mieke and Miep though it's a bit of a stretch to think these would have been used in Scotland. 

I wonder if Meek was just a nickname, or perhaps a misinterpretation of a nickname? People used to come up with all sorts of illogically weird and wonderful pet names.

Have you had a look at the original images on Scotland's People?

[majm]

"Meek" and "Mary"  .... perhaps a poor transcription, or perhaps the lass preferred to be known as Mary 

Cheers, JM

[Ruskie]

Maybe a pet name descriptive of her personality.

I would try to look at the original PR if you haven't already done so China.

Have you asked for assistance to find the marriage of James and Mary? Of course they may never have married, it may have been an irregular marriage, or records may not have survived. Unsure how much searching you have already done. 

That surname looks like a candidate for misinterpretation too.

[Ruskie]

Looking at the 1841 census for Scotland, there are a number of people with Meek as a first/middle name. Most of them born in Ireland.

Did your Meek appear on any Scottish censuses which show a place of birth?

Might Meek/Mary be Irish and maybe she and James married in Ireland? 

[chinakay]

Hi gang...no, I haven't seen the original PR image and I don't think it's worth 5 credits because she's a remarriage and at the rate I'm going through credits....I'm singlehandedly boosting the Scottish GNP by about 5% 

Ruskie, she's from Dunning, Perthshire. It looks like my gggrandmother was just a couple of years old when her mother died so she may have been raised by Mary. Come to think of it, I can't find a death for her mother, so it just occurred to me that this may have been a flaky situation. I wonder if the birth mother just absconded and dad took up with another woman. Goodness knows, it often happened. Food for thought. Another scandal in the family? 

The family got around quite a bit and the original wife's last child was born in Crieff and Mary's first was born in Glasgow. They all show up in Dundee at some point. Dad was a shoemaker.

I'll look into this a bit more tomorrow. Thanks much, gang 

Cheers,
China

[Ruskie]

Um, no clues there then. Though a lot of Irish people did end up in Glasgow. 

Maybe wait till there is an offer of free credits on SP and take advantage of that to check the image.

[Skoosh]

It's just a case of a second name being used as a Christian name, Meek (Meik old spelling) is common in West Lothian, Edinburgh etc' Irish Meek's commoner in the west. My own relations were bootmakers of that name from Linlithgow.

Skoosh.

[Seoras]

I've met some Skoosh. Well, when I say met, I couldn't see them but the marker told me they were thereabouts