After having an enjoyable chat with Lesley and Marilyn at the Ne’erday Party, I was persuaded to tell you all about a
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that has been a thorn in my side for months now.Within a few weeks of starting my family research (15 months ago) I managed to get back to the birth of Thomas Malcolm in 1812. Since then, I have been trying to locate his parents, without much success.
Thomas died in Leslie, Fife in 1878 at 66 years of age. According to his death cert his father was Alexander Malcolm (Shoemaker), but there was no mention of his mother. The IGI shows a Thomas Malcolm being born in Arngask, Fife in 1812, which would tie in with his age at death. It shows only Alexander Malcolm as his father, but no mother’s name. A search on SP reveals the same information. I have also tried local records at the AK Bell library in Perth but the births for Arngask at that time seemed to be missing.
I have also found census information on Thomas as listed below. The ages do vary slightly, as does the place of birth. This is not surprising after reading various posts on TS. I am pretty sure the following is accurate as the names and ages of other family members are what I would expect them to be.
Year Place Age Born In
1841 Falkland 25 Arngask
1851 Arngask 32 Arngask
1861 Portmoak 46 Redford Neuck
1871 Orwell 57 Portmoak
Up to now I have been unable to find any record of Thomas’s marriage to his wfe, Elis(z)abeth Gibson. I am assuming that they were not actually married.
Anyway, back to Alexander Malcolm. Before writing this post I reviewed what information I had on Alexander. I have two prints of the 1841 census downloaded from SP, both for Alexander Malcolm. One has Alexander aged 72 living with his wife Euphemia in Kinross. Alexanders’ occupation is shown as Shoemaker!
I couldn’t believe my luck. How could I have missed this connection before? I checked the IGI and found that Alexander, married Euphemia Brown in Portmoak in 1798. I also found an Alexander Malcolm born in Orwell on 03/12/1767, which would tie in with his age in the 1841 census, or at least very close. His Parents were Peter Malcolm and Sarah Graham. Alas, I can find no record of their marriage either in IGI or SP.
Ok, I can hear you all thinking, why hasn’t he posted this in the success stories forum?
Well, I wanted to exclude the Alexander Malcolm on the other 1841 Cencus print. He was living in Orwell with his wfe Janet and three children. His occupation was Ag. Lab and he was aged 70.
Going back to Alexanders’ son Thomas and wife Elisabeth. They had nine children. Their first two sons, Alexander and David and first two daughters, Hannah and Janet would tie in with the traditional Scottish naming pattern. Elisabeth’s parents were David and Hannah and also assuming that Thomas’s parents were Alexander and Janet, they would match perfectly.
So I now feel that I am back to square one. My gut feeling tells me that the first Alexander with the ‘shoemaker’ connection is the one that I’m looking for. However, his wife’s name was Euphemia, and there are no Euphemia’s in the following generations. Or at least, none that I have found up to now.
I would appreciate any advice you could give. I know that if anyone can help it will be someone from TS. Obviously picking the wrong Alexander could result in tracing the wrong family line.
For those of you who have read this far, apologies for the lengthy posting, but I wanted to give you all as much information as I could.
Bill
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