My Ancestors Stories

Our latest Blogging challenge was to have a Christmas theme...so what could I write about?  Something that came to mind was the number of December weddings we seemed to have so thought I'd provide a little snapshot of some of my ancestors who married at Christmas time. Many I've written about before so I have included a link to those earlier stories for more information.  During the 18th and 19th centuries, getting married on Christmas Day itself was a popular tradition in Britain, with churches holding festive nuptials every 25 December. Whilst it sounds romantic, Christmas weddings usually occurred out of necessity as Christmas and Boxing Day were often the only days of the year that young working-class couples were guaranteed to get off work. In the 1800s, most people worked six days a week and didn't get paid when they didn't work. It was only with the rise of the trade unions in the 20th century that working conditions and employee rights started to improve and the...

I am very lucky to have in my collection several letters written by my maternal great grandfather, Alexander Murray McDougall. He died quite young when my mum was only 8 years old, but she has fond memories of him and visits to the family home in Glasgow. The letters my grandmother kept give us an insight into the kind and caring man that he was.  Alexander was born on 22 June 1885 at 369 Garscube Rd, Glasgow at 11 am in the morning, the first child of George Graeme McDougall, a slater and Martha Orr Campbell Murray.  The family were still living at the same address at the time of the 1891 census.  Alex had three brothers, George Graham born 1887, John Murray born 1894, James born 1896 and a sister, Helen Forrest born 1890.  His mother, Martha died in 1896 when Alex was 11 years old of pernicious anaemia, just three months after the birth of her youngest child, James. Young James also died 5 months later when he was just 8 months of age. They are buried together in L...

My 2 x great grandmother, Maggie (or Margaret Jane) Moore was born c1873, presumably in County Down, Ireland. Despite an exhaustive search, a birth certificate and confirmation of her parentage have not yet been found, or have they? Believed to be Margaret Jane Conway nee Moore, seated on right with daughter, Margaret Jane Martin nee Conway on left and grandchildren, William, Robert and Sarah Martin c1916.   What do we know about Maggie? Maggie married Robert Conway on 09 February, 1892 at Ballygilbert Presbyterian Church in Bangor when she was 19 years of age. Robert was a driver of a post car, Maggie had no occupation. Both were of Conlig and the witnesses were Samuel Gamble and Anna Bella Clark. The other key information was that Maggie was the illegitimate daughter of Thomas Spence, a labourer!  Marriage Certificate - Robert Conway and Maggie Moore - 1892   When Maggie and Robert's daughter, Margaret Jane was born later that year, Maggie's maiden name was given a...

My mum was born in Ayrshire, Scotland and although we always knew that her paternal ancestors were from Ireland we had presumed that her maternal ancestors were all Scottish. However as you can see in her birthplace tree below, research revealed that one branch of her maternal tree was actually English and another was also Irish! Since 2017, Mum has taken several DNA tests with different companies to help me with my research. Over the years, she's become more and more Scottish each time Ancestry update their DNA Ethnicity Estimates. AncestryDNA calculates ethnicity estimates by comparing your DNA to a reference panel made up of thousands of DNA samples from people with a long family history in one place or within one group.   Over time, Ancestry tests more people in these reference panels which is why we get these updates every 12-18 months.  Mum's results have gone from 53% Scotland to 75% Scotland.  When you look at the Ancestry map it depicts the long history of m...