I found him ...in FIFE!!!

[Jake Drummond]

Aye Tish. I'll check out the information required over the next day or two, and if you could email me a copy of the census return it may pinpoint which house in the old stable yard he lived in, as there are/were three from memory. Two in the yard and one slightly out of the yard area.

A wee bit of information about the present use of "Blair Castle" might be of interest to you;
The house and grounds were bought by the now long defunct Fife Coal Company around 1910, in a package which took the old estate of Low Valleyfield, solely to get the mineral rights. This was in the main to supply the nearby naval dockyard with 'navigation coal' for wartime purposes, as the 'Splint' coal was low in some damaging acids and gave less smoke than some in the area, and gave a good heat to the boilers.

The house itself and it's immediate grounds were given over to the Fife Miners Welfare organisation sometime after WW1 to be used as a convalescent home for miners, and is still in use today, though much changed. The "Carlow Home" as most around there know it, was named after the old retired manager of the Fife Coal Company, Augustus Carlow. He did a lot for the welfare of the miners, and is commemorated in a few ex mining towns villages with vaious homes and buildings bearing his name.

Your Charles might have been there at the time of the change over to the Coal Company pre WW1?
What is his given occupation?
I suspect that if his son was born at Rothesay he may have been born at his mum's old home where 'granny' would help out during the
'confinement', an old habit at the time, something you'll have checked?
Were they 'doon the watter' at Rothesay on holiday when the wee one arrived? A check of the address in the census records might show it to have been a boarding house?
The death at Dumbarton makes me think there's been a connection in that area, on the other side of Scotland, possible her family?

My connection with the Carlow Home is two-fold, so that has proved handy for your search! I work for the estate which owns much of the land around that area, and I'm the son of a third generation miner, from a family which had more than it's fair share of use for the Miner's Welfare Organisation, now known as CISWO; the Coal Industries Social Welfare Organisation.

Email me with as much information as you have regarding the Culross Connection and I'll do what I can.

[tishgibbons]

Jake,

thanks for all that. I've sent you an e-mail (I think!) but let me know if nothing arrives!

Tish