I too have hit a brick wall and I wonder if it is due to the ancestor being from a travelling family. I’d welcome any help, insights or advice. My 2nd G grandfather was called William Docherty. He was born c 1874 in Hamilton (according to his appearance in later Scotland census returns) and died in 1947 in Dumfries where he lived certainly from around 1892 or so. He married in Dumfries a lady called Grace Wilson and I’ve found they’re marriage certificate.
The major problem is that I’ve been unable to find a birth certificate for him at all or his entry on census anywhere in the UK before 1901.
From his marriage certificate his fathers name is recorded as Robert Docherty (deceased) and mother Mary Elizabeth Robertson. There is no record of them anywhere I can find.
Where I did make some progress recently was through ancestry DNA where I identified a distant cousin who it appeared was descended from a brother of William Docherty (James). Intriguingly there is no birth record for him either though his later census returns place his birthplace as Lockerbie c 1870. His marriage certificate states parents as for William but Robertson has come Robinson.
Finally an intensive search on Scotlands people identified a third sibling, a sister, Alice Agnes, born - according to census details - in Kirkcudbrightshire in c 1864. Again there is no birth certificate for her, though her. She marrries a Lawrence Collins in Castle Douglas in 25 September 1882 and her marriage certificate already says Robert Dougherty (sic!) is dead. Her mother is cited again as Robinson. She dies young in 1889.
So we have three verified siblings, and verified parents but no birth certificates I’ve been able to find and no parents records I’ve been able to find. The traveller connection is through old family stories that suggest Robert was a traveller who met Mary and married in cumbria in a traveller ceremony. Certainly, my ancestor, William, was a horse dealer all his life in Dumfries and was the first man to take Clydesdale horses to Canada. At his funeral apparently all the local traveller families came to pay their respects.
