Please help decipher this given name

[PuzzledOne]

Hello Suzanne,
She appears to be called Rebecca in 1871, but I certainly can't see that in the 1861 writing!!

Best wishes,
Sarah

Edit: I see Anne has beat me to it!

Hello Sarah,
Yes, Anne did beat you to it and I'm slow answering My first question on any forum and I didn't expect so many answers this fast. Had I known, I would have turned the computer on earlier ,
Thank you!
Suzanne

[PuzzledOne]

'Jaomcy' it is not !

Not least since the capital is not 'J', - there's plenty examples on the page of the enumerator's form of 'J'.

As best as I can see the capital is 'F', - there's a capital F in the occupation field on the last line, and a couple on the previous page.

What the rest is I know not, but, again, it's not 'Jaomcy'. Neither is it Rebecca.

Best I can do is Fa??ey, maybe Fa???ey. The in-between letters are messily written, to say the least. The third letter could be 'g' but it looks like it's got an upper limb, or the enumerator has written over what he first entered.

The ScotlandsPeople census index entry is the only cop-out I've even seen, showing just
" J " for the forename.

Just be thankful you're not looking for the person in the 6th line of the page, the wife of Arch^d......... E???^th.

mb

Hi Montrose,
I agree with you that it is not "J", maybe a "F" but also thought maybe a "Y". I see no examples of this enumerator's "Y" on these two pages and I didn't find any girl's Scottish given name that could fit except Yancy with a spelling twist but I didn't find a Yancy Dunn in other years or in deaths.

How does one find the ScotlandsPeople census index entry? I was wondering how ScotlandsPeople had indexed the name but didn't know how to find it.
Thank you for your help,
Suzanne

[PuzzledOne]

Checking the other children in the family it appears the parents are William Dunn and Mary McCandlish - all the other children appear on IGI except Hannah and "Rebecca", ie all those born after statutory registration in 1855 show up - so looks unfortunately like "Rebecca" was born in 1854 before statutory registration.
Had a look on Ancestry at the cencus 1881 for a Rebecca Dunn - but none of right age or place of birth. Given that she'd be around 25 or 26 by then - it's possible she had married. So looked on IGI but none showed for period up to 1875 - so checked SP for period 1876 to 1881. There was only 1 in Lanarkshire - a Rebecca Dunn to a Thomas McMillan in 1876. Checked on Ancestry and found Thomas and Rebecca McMillan & family in 1881 and the age fitted for Rebecca - so had a look at the marriage entry on SP and indeed it was Rebecca Dunn daughter of William Dunn and Mary McCandlish - the marriage was actually 31 December 1875 but registered in 1876.
So whilst this confirms that the name should be Rebecca - it doesn't help solve what is written on the 1861 cencus !!!

Susan.

Hi Susan,
Thank you so much for going through all that trouble. I hope to eventually be faster at figuring how to look for clues to my puzzles. In one reply, you showed me what I should have done.

My husband's grand mother was Rebecca Smith b. 29 Dec 1889 in Glasgow. SP statutory birth indicates her parents James Smith and Margaret Dunn married 29 July 1881 in Dublin, Ireland as do six of her siblings'. One of her sibling's indicates 29 July 1882 and I am not certain if I found the right record for her eldest sister's birth (abt 1879 or 1880 according to her marriage and other documents).

I had hoped record of their marriage would supply James Smith's and Margaret Dunn's parents' names but was not able to find their marriage in either year in Dublin. I then tried to search census returns of various years to find their possible parents' names. I had narrowed it down to this William Dunn married to Mary and found the 13 Apr 1851 Glasgow Barony marriage of a William Dunn to Mary McCandlish at both Family Search and in the Scotland Old Parish Registers. They seem to be the best possibility.

In the end, what I was trying to find is confirmation that William Dunn and Mary McCandlish are the parents of my Margaret Dunn and not another Margaret Dunn! I chose the least common sibling's name Rebecca (and a given name which was carried on in the family) to do so, but when Rebecca disappeared and "Jaomcy" appeared, I became fixated on trying to find what that name was.

Thank you for your help and for the lesson in how to search, it is greatly appreciated.
Suzanne

[Montrose Budie]

I checked the birth of one of the kids, and the parents are indeed William DUNN and Mary McCANDLISH.

All that I can imagine is that the enumerator has been involved in the completion of the census schedule and has misheard a pet form of Rebecca; except that I can't think of one that matches Jaomcy or Fa??ey.

The father and mother were born in Glasgow so no chance of an Irish accent 'interfering'.

FamilySearch only has -

WILLIAM DUNN Birth: 14 OCT 1857
MARGARET DUNN Birth: 13 AUG 1859
JAMES DUNN Birth: 15 JUN 1861
HENRY DUNN Birth: 20 MAY 1863
CHARLES DUNN Birth:17 APR 1865
MARY DUNN Birth: 12 DEC 1868
CHARLES DUNN Birth: 06 MAR1872

All Bridgeton except William who was High Church.

mb

[Montrose Budie]

Meant to explain that the GROS (i.e. ScotlandsPeople) sub-contractor indexed the 1861 name as plain 'J'

mb

[SarahND]

Hello Suzanne,

In the end, what I was trying to find is confirmation that William Dunn and Mary McCandlish are the parents of my Margaret Dunn and not another Margaret Dunn!

Have you tried to find Margaret's death certificate? Her parents names should also be on that.
Just playing with the search function on ScotlandsPeople I see that there is a Margaret Smith, other surname Dunn, born 1859, who died in Glasgow City in 1931. Could that be your husband's great grandmother?

Best wishes,
Sarah

[Alan SHARP]

Alan SHARP.

Hello Alan,
I am new at forums, thank you for the advice. I see from Anne's answer below how I should have formulated my question.
Suzanne

Greetings Suzanne,
from New Zealand.

Now you know you signed on the right forum. It's great to know such places exist with volunteer members who are ever so generous in sharing their collective knowledge, of genealogical research, and especially that pertaining to Scotland. When you are the other side of the world, it's not like just popping into the local library for info.

There is no need to apologise as we all had/have to start some where. You did well for a first start, as I even had to have a tutorial from one of the Moderators, to be able to link in to some photos I wanted to post. It's the little things that count and I was able to deduce that in was the 1861 census from your jpg file title 1861DUNNcrop.

Once the TS collective have had a look at your case, you can have confidence that there are not many stones you, in your innocence, have over looked.

Alan SHARP.

[PuzzledOne]

Hello Suzanne,

In the end, what I was trying to find is confirmation that William Dunn and Mary McCandlish are the parents of my Margaret Dunn and not another Margaret Dunn!

Have you tried to find Margaret's death certificate? Her parents names should also be on that.
Just playing with the search function on ScotlandsPeople I see that there is a Margaret Smith, other surname Dunn, born 1859, who died in Glasgow City in 1931. Could that be your husband's great grandmother?

Best wishes,
Sarah

Sarah,
My husband's great grandmother Margaret (Dunn) Smith's husband James died in 1900 in Glasgow Bridgeton. Her children gradually immigrated to Canada from abt 1913 on. Some were married before, others married here in Lachine or Rosemont (Montreal), Quebec. Margaret (Dunn) Smith followed in 1920.

One of her granddaughters (now deceased) wrote that her "granny Smith" died 3 Aug 1925; my mother-in-law tells me her grandmother died in "summer 1929" but both agree it was in Lachine, Quebec. I couldn't find her death in the register under either Margaret Smith or Margaret Dunn (including Maggie, Mgt, etc...) in Ancestry.ca's Quebec Vital Records (Drouin Collection) parish registers in any of the surrounding Montreal protestant parishes. For Quebec vital records to 1941 or so, we can see the actual register image and turn the pages. I searched from 1920 to early 1930's, turned the page of countless registers and made corrections or additions to a multitude of records where given name had not been transcribed or name was not transcribed properly.... still no definite death record found for her. The protestant church registers in Quebec don't provide as much information as the Scotland statutory death record I found for her husband James Smith, which to me was like finding a gold mine!

I'm trying to eliminate any unsuitable Margaret Dunn, assuming that in the end, I would end up with a fairly positive identification. I don't really know how else I can do it.

I saw the Margaret Dunn you mention. I believe someone also has her in their public family tree on Ancestry. If I remember correctly, she would be the daughter of Charles Dunn wire weaver and Margaret (McCandlish) Dunn. I suspect Charles Dunn (b. 1834) is one of William Dunn's (b. 1829) younger brothers and both would be sons of James Dunn b. 1796 Glasgow and Mary Tomlinson who married in 1820 Glasgow... but that is just a first guess!

Thank you for your help,
Suzanne

[PuzzledOne]

I checked the birth of one of the kids, and the parents are indeed William DUNN and Mary McCANDLISH.

All that I can imagine is that the enumerator has been involved in the completion of the census schedule and has misheard a pet form of Rebecca; except that I can't think of one that matches Jaomcy or Fa??ey.

The father and mother were born in Glasgow so no chance of an Irish accent 'interfering'.

FamilySearch only has -

WILLIAM DUNN Birth: 14 OCT 1857
MARGARET DUNN Birth: 13 AUG 1859
JAMES DUNN Birth: 15 JUN 1861
HENRY DUNN Birth: 20 MAY 1863
CHARLES DUNN Birth:17 APR 1865
MARY DUNN Birth: 12 DEC 1868
CHARLES DUNN Birth: 06 MAR1872

All Bridgeton except William who was High Church.

mb

Thank you so much for all the help, you are all so much faster than I am, I'm having trouble keeping up Experience must be the key! Now I just hope Margaret Dunn born 13 Aug 1859 is 'my' Margaret Dunn... but at this point, it looks as if she will turn out to be right one. I'm trying to make sure I leave no stones unturned and I haven't found another suitable one yet.
Best regards,
Suzanne

[PuzzledOne]

Meant to explain that the GROS (i.e. ScotlandsPeople) sub-contractor indexed the 1861 name as plain 'J'

mb

Hi,
Thank you for that explanation but maybe I didn't explain very clearly. What I meant by that question was how can you see it was indexed as plain "J"? I found the 1861 census image on SP by searching for William Dunn. I was then able to see what Ancestry indexed as "Jaomcy". When I couldn't figure out the given name myself, I was curious to see how SP or GROS had indexed it (as opposed to Ancestry). The only way I could think of doing that was to try various possible combinations using ***. I didn't search just "J", thinking there would be too many results, therefore I didn't find how SP had indexed the name. Would there have been an easy way to find out how the sub-contractor indexed the name as plain "J"?
There is so much to learn but I'll get better eventually... I hope!
Suzanne