Christian Moffat

[Forfarian]

Cupcake, I am beginning to get very confused.

Which of the family of William Moffat and Christian Fraser is your ancestor/ancestress?

[cupcake]

Cupcake, I am beginning to get very confused.

Which of the family of William Moffat and Christian Fraser is your ancestor/ancestress?

Mary FLEMING (MOFFAT) daughter b.1806 Dumfries. Her sons were George FLEMING b. 1830  William FLEMING b.1831

[Forfarian]

The more I think about it, the more I think that putting '64' in the male age column in 1841 must have been an error by the enumerator.

I have in my tree a listing (though I can't find it at the moment) where the enumerator has put the name, marital status, age and occupation of the husband, then the birthplace of the wife, omitting the husband's birthplace, and the name, marital status and age of the wife. I assume that when he was copying the details from the schedule into the enumeration book he simply missed a line.

So enumerators are not infallible. What if this one managed to leave out a line, and the 64-year-old male is William?

[cupcake]

The more I think about it, the more I think that putting '64' in the male age column in 1841 must have been an error by the enumerator.

I have in my tree a listing (though I can't find it at the moment) where the enumerator has put the name, marital status, age and occupation of the husband, then the birthplace of the wife, omitting the husband's birthplace, and the name, marital status and age of the wife. I assume that when he was copying the details from the schedule into the enumeration book he simply missed a line.

So enumerators are not infallible. What if this one managed to leave out a line, and the 64-year-old male is William?

I honestly do not know. The only doubt I have is, William would have been 69 in1841 (he was born 1772). That said, I can see where you are coming from, as enumerators are not infallible.

I have been trying for years to find William & Christian's deaths, just keep finding their children 

[cupcake]

Would I have to go to Glasgow, Mitchell Library to get information regarding the Poor House, Barony Glasgow 1875.

cupcake

[Gadget]

So enumerators are not infallible. What if this one managed to leave out a line, and the 64-year-old male is William?

That seems a very likely explanation.

From my snip (above), it's quite clearly in the male column and the occupation is manager. SPs reply to me (above) doesn't help in this case as they can only interpret what is on the page.

[cupcake]

So enumerators are not infallible. What if this one managed to leave out a line, and the 64-year-old male is William?

That seems a very likely explanation.

From my snip (above), it's quite clearly in the male column and the occupation is manager. SPs reply to me (above) doesn't help in this case as they can only interpret what is on the page.

I do agree with you both. Thank you.

cupcake

[Forfarian]

The only doubt I have is, William would have been 69 in 1841 (he was born 1772).

How do you know for certain that he was the one born in 1772, if you can't find him in a census and you don't have a date of death and age at death?

There are 54 surviving baptism records of William Moffats (of varying spellings) in the Church of Scotland registers between 1760 and 1780, of whom 16 were baptised in Dumfries-shire. One of them was baptised in Dumfries itself on 9 May 1776, and would have been 65 on the date of the 1841 census if he survived.

Just because the one baptised in 1772 seems to fit, you cannot assume that he is the right one. Without other evidence, you cannot even assume that he was born in Dumfries, or even in Dumfries-shire rather than in one of the neighbouring counties. You need to look for evidence other than the parish registers, and that will not be easy to find.

The search isn't helped by the fact that only the baptisms of William and Christian's sons John and Andrew contain their mother's name. You will need to check all the baptisms in Dumfries of all the children of William Moffat without a mother's name in order to get a more complete list of their children in order, and hope that they followed the naming tradition.

[Forfarian]

The Glasgow Post Office directory of 1840-1841 list 3 William Moffats
- a surgeon, at 158 George Street
- a last and boot-tree maker at 108 Stockwell Street
- a grocer and spirit dealer at 656 Gallowgate

The second one can be discounted because he is easy to find in the 1841 census, aged 40, so too young to be your William Moffat.

The surgeon was aged 55 in the 1841, so born 1791-1796, so he too is also too young to be yours.

The grocer and spirit dealer was listed at 1004 Gallowgate in 1837-1838, at 656 Gallowgate in 1838-1839, and from 1839-1840 onwards the listing is Mrs William Moffat.

Formal etiquette would describe a married woman as Mrs followed by her husband's name. If she was a widow it would describe her as Mrs xxx yyyy where xxxx is her given name and yyyy is her husband's surname. However there is no guarantee that the compilers of the directory stuck to strict etiquette. The point being that the change from William Moffat to Mrs William Moffat does not necessarily mean that William Moffat had died. He might have retired from the business, perhaps owing to ill health, leaving his wife to run it.

If the business address had been in Robertson Street, it would have been reasonable to suppose that it was your William and Christian's business, but it's not, so the conclusion I arrive at is that the Glasgow Post Office directories are not going to help you. Nor will the valuation rolls, because at that time they don't name all the small householders.

So all this has been a rather unhelpful red herring, I suppose.

You might like to have a look at the directories for yourself. They're online at http://digital.nls.uk/directories/browse/pageturner.cfm?id=91047488