In
my search for my wife’s ancestors I found several that were born in Macduff,
Banffshire, Scotland. One cousin (twice removed), Isabella Lyall, moved around
a bit but her birthplace and date was consistent on most records allowing me to
find her on many types of records fairly easily – up to a point.
She
was at home in 1841, in Macduff, as a child of one year, with her parents and
two sisters. On the 1851 census she was staying with her grandmother, Mary
McKay, also in Macduff and just a few blocks from her parents’ home. She was
going to school at the time.
She
married James Storm, a seaman, on 12 January 1861 in Macduff. Shortly after
their marriage they moved to Findhorn, Morayshire, where James was employed as
a seaman in merchant service. Isabella also had an uncle living there. The
couple was residing in Findhorn at the time of the 1861 census (April).
Unfortunately James died the following year in Findhorn, of Phthisis Pulmonalis (Tuberculosis) after
suffering for two years with the disease. Isabella moved back to Macduff
afterward, no doubt to be closer to her family.
In
1871 she is shown on the Macduff census as a housekeeper in the Thomson family
household. At first glance there is no head of household shown and my first
thought was that the individuals shown at the top of this page, two children
aged 14 and 8, were part of the family at the bottom of the previous page. The
surnames were different but that sometimes happens if a widowed woman with
children remarries. In this case, though, the couple were not old enough to
have children this age. I noticed there was a note by the enumerator that said
of the Thomson family, “Head absent at
sea.” That was the clue I needed to help me find Isabella on later records.
 |
| 1871 Scotland Census for Thomson family, with Isabella Storm, living in Macduff, Banffshire |
I
looked for the lady, with surnames, Lyall and Storm, on subsequent Scotland censuses
and on marriage and death records for the area. But she was not to be found.
Then
I looked for the two children on the 1881 census and found one, aged 18, in a
family with parents, William and Isabella Thomson. This Isabella was the
right age to be Isabella Storm. I thought the child was most likely was the
same girl as was listed on the 1871 census. Since there was no mother shown on
the 1871 census I reasoned the missing head of that household might possibly have
been widowed. On the 1881 census, there were three younger children that could
well have come from a second wife, if the man had remarried.
I
did a search for these younger siblings on the ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk website and up came birth records that
showed their parents were William Thomson and Isabella Lyall! To top
that, their marriage was shown on the birth records as 20 May 1871 in London,
England. Quite obviously the 18-year old on the census was not the natural
daughter of Isabella.
Don’t
you love those Scottish records that have so much information about the
families? It is interesting that Isabella used her maiden name for the second
marriage but then again, that is not unusual in Scotland as women generally
keep their own names.
From
there I managed to find vital data about Isabella and William, on censuses from
1891 to 1911 and right to their deaths. I found William’s marriage to his first
wife and her death just a year after their daughter was born. Her name was also
shown on his death record. Both individuals must have felt a kinship right from
the start, having lost their spouses too soon. They ended up living a long life
together, Isabella dying in 1901 and William in 1915.
A
whole family was fleshed out from one little note in a census. The enumerator
obviously believed that just listing two minor children, with a housekeeper but
no mother, needed a bit more explanation.
Was
this serendipity or just plain close observation of a record? In any case it
does pay to read everything!
Wayne
Shepheard is a retired geologist and active genealogist. He volunteers with the
Online Parish
Clerk
program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of
articles about various aspects of genealogy in several family history society
journals. Wayne has also served as an editor of two such publications. He
provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.
