Vistor on 1871 Census driving me crazy …..

[sheilajim]

Hi All

WOW! What wonderful messages I got when I turned on my computer today. I am so excited I hardly know what I am writing about, but I am dancing all over the room.
It is really amazing what other people's eyes see that I didn't. I spent many a credit on SP and came up blank. I couldn't even find the family on the 1881 Census.
That is definetly my Janet Dun's family. They lived on Broad Street in Alloa from at least 1861 through 1891.

My thanks to all of you, Mary, David, Joette, Sarah and Caroline, but especially to Susan for breaking it wide open and to Anne Anderson who gave me information going back to Balfron.

Thank you so much Susan. I don't know how you did it. If you were near me I would give you the biggest hug ever. Thank you Anne for taking me back further. More research is needed, but it looks like it could be Balfron, especially for Chirsten Dun.

Thank you all. There is no way that I can thank you enough.


Sheila

[sheilajim]

Hi All

A special thanks to Caroline who found the family on the 1881 Census. A special hug to her too, to go along with all the hugs for Susan. I still can't find her on SP's 1881 Census so I assume that she was found on FHS only. I have sent SP an e-mail regarding this.

It will be great when Ancestry puts the 1881 and 1901 census online. It will be even greater when FreeCen puts their's online. With the 3 of them working, it will be easier to find our ancestors.

I am embarrassed that I didn't find Janet Dunn's Death in 1883. I think that I assumed to much that she had died earlier. I didn't search later than 1881.

Susan, Caroline and Anne have given me so much new information that it will take awhile for me to sort it all out, once I have calmed down a bit.

I have learned several lessons from all this, don't underestimate the value of visitors on the censuses, and make your search wider, in terms of years, assume nothing.

Cheers

Sheila

[StewL]

Shiela

We've all done it, got too locked into a date and missed the obvious. I recall when I first started this game I spent a fortune looking for the birth and marriages of my maternal grandfather. Then found his birth a year before my original cut off dates And his twin brother on the next page. Same with his marriage I had the cut off date a year off
brickwall solved

[sheilajim]

Hi Stewl

It is nice to know that I am not the only one to have done such a thing. It is still embarrassing though.

From Janet Dunn's Death Cert, it appears that she was born in 1797, at least that is the info that her grandson gave.

Thank you Caroline for that lead to the Alloa pictures. Really interesting. I will use some of them when I get around to typing up my family tree for my living relatives.

Regards

Sheila[/b]

[Susan]

Hi Sheila

Glad I was able to help you.

When I couldn't find a death for your Janet Dun before 1881 I just decided maybe she died later, so I kept looking. You had given us enough info to suggest that she and some of her grandchillren should still be at the Broad Steet address at that time. I could find none if them there - or elsewhere - and it made me think that perhaps they had been indexed incorrectly in the census. I had also tried looking for Janet's death using alternatives for Janet - for example Jessie, Jane etc, along with all the usual wildcards. That still didn't help - and then I noticed that in all the census returns where Janet was head of household - her age was significantly different from the one census where her great niece Margaret's husband was head of household - made me think maybe she always knocked a whack off her age - whereas Margaret & Robert gave it correctly when she was staying with them. That's when I decided to try looking after 1881 and using the widest age gap - and there it was.

I would not worry too much about her grandson registering the wrong given name for Janet's mother - that happens often for one reason or another. Janet was one of the younger siblings in the family of John Dunn & Catrine Edmond and as Janet lived to a very old age - I would imagine she had outlived most if not all of her siblings - along with her daughter and probably several nieces and nephews besides - perhaps it was hard for those there at the time of her death to recall her mother's name. (Almost the very same thing happened with the DC of one of my gggg grandmothers - she died at 93 having outlived both of her children, several of her grandchildren and all 6 of her brothers and sisters along with several nieces and nephews. Her death was registered by a great nephew who gave the wrong given name for her mother.)

Anyhow hopefully all the info everyone came up will be a great help to you.

Susan.

[sheilajim]

Hi Susan

Your information and the info of all the others was a tremendous help for me. While it opened up more "possibles", it closed a lot of my other "possibles".

Thanks to you and all the others on Talking Scot.

Cheers

Sheila

[sheilajim]

Hi All

I got so much help on this line from so many people, especially Susan, that I am giving an update.

It took me some time before getting around to ordering the OPR's from LDS. They sent me copies of the Baptism Records in just over a week,(Bless their hearts) .
Regarding the Associate Session, Balfron Baptisms:

The records state that all of the Dun Children, including Janet and Christian, were baptized in Balfron to John Dun and Kathrine/Catrine/Cathrine Edmond of the township of Fintry.

There is also a marriage of a John Dun of Fintry to a Kathrine Edmond of Kilearn in 1775. There is also, as someone else pointed out, a marriage in 1750 of a John Dun of Fintry to a Janet Edmond of Kilearn in 1750.

I am 80% certain that the Janet Dun baptized in Balfron, born in Fintry,in 1797, is the Janet Dun that I have been searching for, and it is possible that the Christian is my ancestor. There is still the fact that Janet Dun's grandson gave the information on the Death Register, that Janet Dun's parents were John Dun and Janet Edmond. I have learned that you can't take anything for granted.

Maybe one day I will be able to prove or disprove the relationship, but till that time I will have to file them in probable.

I have learned another thing from this particular search. Children are not necessarily baptized in the town that you might think. They might be attending the Church in the next town. It is worth your while to look a little farther away for marriages and baptizms.

Regards

Sheila