“Ted” was his name – or so we thought

According to my wife’s father, Bill McKay, his brother’s name was Ted. That is what he was called his whole life. His parents called him Ted. So did his brothers and sisters. His wife knew him as Ted and even put that on is gravestone.

Bill McKay alongside his brother's grave on a visit to Scotland in 1969

We naturally assumed, then, that his name was Edward or Theodore or something similar and concentrated our searches for Ted or Edward MacKay. We didn’t find him though!

Quite by accident, I heard from one of his granddaughters. I had posted a message to the Moray County, Scotland list on Rootsweb in August 2004. I was looking for information about Isabel Scott, wife of Hugh MacKay. They were grandparents of Bill and Ted. I was not specifically looking for data on Ted but had been tracing back the family and had found Bill and Ted’s parents, Alexander MacKay and Mary Ann Milne and, from them, Alexander’s parents, Hugh MacKay and his wife, Isabel Scott, living in Findhorn, Morayshire, Scotland. This was before the 1911 census had been released so I did not have the benefit of seeing the whole family listed. We only had the names of Bill’s siblings as he knew them – including, of course, Ted!

Isabel Scott was born in Knockyfin, Morayshire (sometimes spelled Knockphin) and I wanted to know more about the area as well as her family. That was the subject of my 2004 Rootsweb query.

An email arrived in November 2007 from Ted’s granddaughter who said, “I am also a descendent of Isabel Scott - just got her birth certificate yesterday so was looking for the same place!” Isn’t it neat when you find another cousin on the mailing lists! And from a message posted over three years earlier!

We started comparing notes about the family. She knew her grandfather had a brother named Bill but did not know he had moved to Canada or anything about his family. We were shooting in the dark, looking to expand our knowledge about the MacKay family left in Scotland.

One of the first things she told us was that her mother’s father, Ted, was actually named Augustus Storm Mackay. What a surprise! And no wonder he called himself Ted!

From then on all of the pieces fell right into place. As documents were released for viewing on ScotlandsPeople, we were able to confirm Ted’s real name on the 1909 birth, 1933 marriage and 1911 census records.

 

No one really knows why he was saddled with that particular name. His parents lived next door to a family by the name of Storm in Findhorn Village, Kinloss. Alexander was a salmon fisherman and his neighbour, James Storm was a yachtsman. They were both born in Findhorn, of similar age, likely involved in the same industry and probably also close friends. That may explain part of Ted’s name. Where the name, Augustus, came from is still a mystery, though.

Anyway, through an accidental contact made by asking a question on a Rootsweb mailing list, we found a new set of cousins and found out the true identity of an uncle.

Ted’s birth record was downloaded from Scotlands People and reproduced here with the kind permission of the Registrar General for Scotland.

Mistaken Assumptions from Register Notes

This is a story illustrating the confusion of surnames used by one family and what erroneous conclusions can be drawn from limited information. I found this while transcribing parish registers of Plympton St. Mary parish, Devon.

 

On the face of it, there are a curious set of comments on the baptism register from Plympton St. Mary parish. On two baptism entries, in 1873 and 1874, children are shown with only one parent, Elizabeth Nicholls. No father is indicated.  A statement was made on both occasions that might lead one to think there was some hanky-panky going on!

 

The 1873 baptism for Mary Nicholls has a note that says her mother, Elizabeth, was “living with her deceased sister’s husband.” The 1874 baptism for Mary’s brother, Ernest, had a similar note which said Elizabeth was “living with her sister’s widower, Thomas Mackenney.”

 

 

 

In 1859 Thomas McKenny had married Eliza Nicholls, the sister of Elizabeth Nicholls.

 

1859 marriage record for Thomas McKenny and Eliza Nicholls, Plympton St. Mary parish

1861 England Census - Thomas and Eliza Mackenny family, residing at North Side of Underwood, Plympton St. Mary parish

Eliza died in 1870 leaving Thomas with six young children. In 1871, Elizabeth Nicholls was living with her brother-in-law and his children. Perhaps she had come to help out after her sister’s death the year before.



1871 England Census - Thomas Mackenny family and Elizabeth Nicholls, residing at Sydney Cottages, Plympton St. Mary parish

By 1881 Elizabeth had apparently married Thomas as she is shown with the MacKenny surname. The couple now had three more children, presumably together, all with the surname MacKenny.

 

1881 England Census - Thomas and Elizabeth MacKenny family, residing at Dark Lane, Plympton St. Mary parish

Civil registration documents show Thomas and Elizabeth were married in Plymouth in 1872. Birth records for both Mary and Ernest were registered with the name of MacKenny, even though the baptism entries said their name was Nicholls.

 

This is an example of the prohibition against a man marrying his deceased wife’s sister in effect at the time. The refusal to approve such marriages was part of early canon law based on the interpretation of texts from the Old Testament. It became an absolute civil ban with passing of the Marriage Act of 1835. It was not repealed in Britain until 1907. While the births of the children were recorded by civil authorities with the man’s surname, it is obvious that the church refused to recognize the union, if they even knew. Nor would the church have sanctioned the marriage ceremony in the parish in which they lived. Very likely the marriage itself was done under license and the parties did not tell the entire truth about the relationship of the sisters.

 

Regardless, the baptism information could lead one to search for quite different people without having first looked at other records for the family and unraveling a bit of history first. The note in the register about the mother’s living arrangements does give a clue about what was going on.

 

By the way, the prohibition against a wife marrying a dead husband’s brother was not lifted until 1921.

 

Curiously, I have not found a baptism record for the last two children born to Thomas and Elizabeth after 1874. The marriage record for one of them, Bessie, indicates she was married after banns; so she must have been baptized someplace.

 

The lesson here is that not all is what it may seem from entries and notes in the parish registers. It is always necessary to look at all the information available, as well as review the data in light of historical conditions, in order to get the real story.

 

Baptism and marriage images reproduced here are used with the kind permission of the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office (PWDRO), Census records are the property of The National Archives and published under their Open Government License. Images were downloaded from Ancestry or FindMyPast , or copied from my own microfiche.

Children of the Poor

Some of the notes in parish baptism, marriage and burial registers are very telling as to the individuals, as well as to social and political history. These are rarely included in published indexes but are important in putting context into our ancestors’ activities.

One of my OPC parishes is Plympton St. Mary where a Union Workhouse was located. This institution housed people who had experienced some unfortunate circumstances in their lives – singles and whole families, the widowed and aged, the unemployed and unemployable. It was also a place in which a few people lived who were not exactly upstanding citizens. Many of them found ways to socialize with each other that resulted in not a few pregnancies.

A report prepared for the British parliament in 1777 noted that there were 1,916 workhouses in England which housed some 90,000 paupers. One such institution was in existence in Plympton St. Mary parish. The report indicated that the workhouse housed up to 100 inmates in eight rooms. Land had actually been set aside in 1736, for construction of a workhouse in the parish. A new building was planned for the area in 1836 in which residents from Plympton St. Mary and another, nearby parish would be housed. It was opened in 1841. It changed its name a couple of times: to the Plympton St. Mary Poor Law Institution in 1912; then to the Plympton Public Assistance Institution in 1929. After 1948, when the National Health Service came into being, it was called the Underwood House Hospital, renamed Plympton Hospital in 1958.

Between 1813 and 1943, 623 baptisms were recorded in the parish for infants whose parent(s) resided in the Union Workhouse or Underwood House, as it was referred to later. Of these, 543 entries (87%) showed no father’s name! Prior to 1813 the place of residence was not recorded in the baptism register. Between 1603 and 1991 a total of 1,232 baptisms [total 22540] were listed in the Plympton St. Mary parish register with the mother identified but not the father. Many of the 689 apparently fatherless children born before 1813 likely lived in the workhouse although that cannot be confirmed just from the baptism register. Inmate lists, guardian minutes or the burial register could be consulted to assist in determining the residence of the individuals.

Rarely was a bastardy order issued in the area so it is almost impossible to determine the fathers’ names for most of the children born in the workhouse. Occasionally the father might come forward or be identified by a diligent Vicar such as was recorded in 1797 for the parents of William Elford and Martha Parsons. For family history researchers today, however, most of these entries produce more obstacles in their search for ancestors.

 

Notes occasionally made in the register give us additional information about the social and political situations prevalent at the time. For example, comments made with the Cornwood baptism entries for two children of Ms. Jane Adams are instructive.

Jane Adams had two children out of wedlock within a couple of years, in 1808 and 1810. Both referenced the fact that Ms. Adams was not a resident of Cornwood and that she was being given special permission have her babies in the parish.

 

In 1808 the Vicar recorded: “the Mother was permitted to be delivered in this parish under an engagement, that Plympton would consider the child as belonging to that parish”

 

The 1810 entry makes it quite clear that the Vicar of Cornwood was concerned as to who would be responsible for their care if Ms. Adams became destitute when he wrote “note that the mother was permitted to lie in in Cornwood under a promise from Plympton to consider the Bastard as theirs.”

 

Prior to passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, individual parishes were responsible for poor relief and they took care to ensure that only their own legitimate families were listed for any support. Local county and regional governments took over welfare responsibilities after 1834.

Even well after 1834, the workhouses remained an important part of the communities in which they existed. The provided a place of refuge for families that had undergone severe economic or other setbacks. In the following example, a woman was deserted, along with her three children, sometime before the birth of her third.

 

 

The note at the bottom of the page, written by the Vicar, stated with respect to the three entries, that “Nos. 1526, 1627 should have preceded No. 1525, they being the legitimate children of Wm. & Elizth. Avery. The woman was deserted by her husband, and the child, Robt. George was born subsequently.” In the absence of other records, the note gives information as to the relative ages of the three boys and also tells us that Richard John and William Henry Edward were born at least nine months before Robert George.

For family historians, searching for information about ancestors who had these kinds of beginnings, present unique difficulties. The original records can sometimes show additional data that sheds more light on conditions affecting the particular lives of people, information that will not be available in indexes of just names and dates.

Baptism images reproduced here are used with the kind permission of the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office. Images were downloaded from FindMyPast.