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Deciphering a document

jorghes

jorghes

LostCousins Superstar
I am having some difficulty translating this document and finding the reciprocal documents to support what this suggests. I am hoping that others can assist in deciphering it.

It is a death register for David Forbes, my 4x great grandfather, who luckily died in Scotland in 1855, when they were testing their new version of civil registration (unfortunately this amount of information didn't last).

Unluckily, it's a bit difficult to read in parts probably due to age and handwriting... (It's in two halves to hopefully make it easier to read). It also is unfortunate that it doesn't include David's occupation which has been given as both street porter and policeman (at different times)... I'm not sure if those two occupations seem like a logical pair.

I have deciphered the following:
David Forbes, male, 55 years (seems more likely than "35"). Born in Prestopans, 3 years in district (also seems unlikely).
Father: William Forbes, ?? servant, deceased
Mother: Jane Forbes, deceased, maiden name Montgomery
Wife: Jane Ford
Children:
1. John deceased? 21 in 1847??
2. Helen deceased 21 in 1844 (which wouldn't make sense if John is older than Helen!)
3. James 27
4. Jane 25
5. Mary 22
6. David deceased 1 in 1838

When died: 1855, July sixteenth, 2h AM
Where: Covenant Close
Cause: Disease of the heart ???? ???? general dropsy
about three? months
as certified by Thomas Wright MD when saw deceased 15th July 1855

Burial place: N???ington Burying Ground, not certified

Signature of informant: absolutely no clue whatsoever except it doesn't look like one of his children
Registered 1855 July 16th at Edinburgh.

David Forbes and Jean Ford married on the 13 December 1820 in Canongate. There are baptismal/birth entries for Mary (14/07/1833, Canongate), and John (9/12/1821, Liberton) in the Church of Scotland records and Jane/Jean (7 Jan 1830) in the Bread Street Presbyterian records; and a death record in 1838 for a David Forbes, age 1, son of David Forbes, policeman in St Cuthbert's.
I have yet to find baptismal documents to support the existences of James or Helen.

I have not been able to yet find a record for a David Forbes born to William Forbes and Jane Montgomery in Prestopans for approx 1800.

There is an 1841 census record for a David Forbes, living at St John's Hill, Edinburgh with presumed wife Jean and possible children: William 13, James 10, Mary 7 who has the occupation of Street Porter [685/2] and an 1851 census for a David Forbes, street porter aged 57, born in East Lothian, a street porter with his wife Jean, 53. They lived at Malloch Close, Edinburgh.

Jean Ford died in 1872 age 74, widow of David Forbes, street porter; and her informant was her son-in-law, James Shaw (second husband of her daughter and my 3x great grandmother Jane - to confirm this further, Jane's daughter Jane - confused yet? - named one of her sons after her step-father, James Shaw).

Is there anything I have missed/mistranscribed?

[And yes, I do bounce around my tree and work on several "brick walls" at once]

53675804040_fb60f4aad0_k.jpg

53675804035_f85a5c1a77_k.jpg
 
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Tim said:
I think for

it should be 1842.

If was 35, then he would have been 14 when the eldest was born. so yes it makes sense it should be 55.
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1842 makes much more sense when the children are put in order... Unfortunately there are no easy results for a 21 year old called John Forbes dying in 1842 any more than there was in 1847!

Susan48 said:
I think it's bronchitis after disease of the heart.

Probably Newington Burying Ground (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Preston_Street_Burial_Ground)
Click to expand...

Thank you - I think I read Newington or similar and then second guessed myself.

peter said:
I read it as David dec(eased) inf(ant) born 1835 - but it could be 1838
Click to expand...

It could very well be 1835 - I think I read 1838 because it doesn't seem to match any of the other fives (beyond the mangled one on his age).

Just an addition: I did my search for the death of Mary when I don't know if she married, and unfortunately Mary died on 24 November 1862 at the age of 28 of TB. Her mother, still alive, gave her husbands occupation as "sergeant of police".

[Search method only works for statutory deaths on ScotlandsPeople, but you place in the mother's maiden name (if known), their maiden surname in "other surname" and the woman's first name and the upper range for search the year they would have turned 100. At this point I have found quite a few married and unmarried members of my tree that way.]
 
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Second addition: James died, an Army Pensioner, in 1900 aged 71 in Saint Giles, Edinburgh. The informant was his sister, Jane Shaw, who was living at the time at 3 Rose Street, Burntisland. If nothing prior had confirmed this was the correct family, this would - that is the address of my great-grandfather on the 1901 census, who was living with his grandmother (Jane Shaw) while he worked as a footman just prior to emigrating to North Queensland in about 1906. [She gives her father's occupation as Police Constable...]

Attached is James' death register. Can anyone make out the maiden name of his wife? (the corrected entry changes his cause of death to "natural causes")
53675976772_408c8f401e_b.jpg
 
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Nobody seems to have provided an answer to this one - father William's occupation looks like Brewer's servant
 
I was a bit puzzled by the question about James's wife's name - surely it's Annie Amos? And it turns out not to be so hard to find James with her and her family in 1871, which provides some evidence at least that Annie was - very briefly - married to Donald McKay and had a son of the same name. He's living in 1901 at 43 Potterrow, where James died. And for Annie/Anne/Anna there is a death record:
upload_2024-4-26_22-21-45.png

Mind you, can't find any marriage for them, nor censuses for James in 1881 or 1891.
 
Stuart said:
I was a bit puzzled by the question about James's wife's name - surely it's Annie Amos? And it turns out not to be so hard to find James with her and her family in 1871, which provides some evidence at least that Annie was - very briefly - married to Donald McKay and had a son of the same name. He's living in 1901 at 43 Potterrow, where James died. And for Annie/Anne/Anna there is a death record:
View attachment 2467

Mind you, can't find any marriage for them, nor censuses for James in 1881 or 1891.
Click to expand...

Sometimes you can't find what is in front of your face.

I'm not sure easy is the word, it took me a while to find the 1871 census entry, and I only did so because I traced Annie/Anna's mother, Margaret. This is possibly because James' age is incorrect - it shows him as 40, with a birth year of 1831, when in fact his birth year was 1828 and he would have been 43. Maybe he was trying to seem closer in age to his wife, who was born in 1843?? [Ancestry also has mistranscribed James' surname as "Forker", which when you're using it for secondary searching, increases the difficulty!]

Not sure why James can't be found in 1881 or 1891, I've found Donald McKay in 1881, he's still living with his grandmother.

I do find it interesting that Anna's marriage to Donald McKay is not mentioned on her death register. Often it would have been - I have one death register for a male relative which lists all three of his wives... And the previously mentioned Jane Forbes who married James Shaw also has both husbands on her death register.

Edit: It seems that Donald McKay was the one who lived at 43 Potterow, he's there with his family in 1891 and 1901, so perhaps step-dad came to stay at the end of his life.
 
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I guess we all do research in our own way, and my first choice for a quick look in Britain is FMP. That's down to the controllability of its search process and the format of the transcripts in censuses, not that the transcripts are better (though they probably are). That 2-year tolerance on date of birth does often need expanding, as it calls for more numeracy and respect for accuracy than a lot of ancestors exhibit.

So I did get James in 1871, and all of Margaret Amos's censuses, quickly enough. One other useful thing that popped up was the gravestone of the McKay family in Leith, with its very long list. Jane Gunn had just buried her husband in 1860, after three of her nine children, then Donald and his elder brother Neil both in 1863. But the success of searching is as much luck as anything to do with the way it is done.

Anna was married to Donald for only three months (March-June 1863), so may not have seen herself as properly married. Perhaps Donald was already seriously ill, and she wanted to marry mainly to legitimate Donald jnr. (in Scotland this happened automatically on marriage).

I did wonder what Anna and her sister Mary would have been painting on Venetian blinds. The answer seems to be ... white paint. The slats then were wooden, and white was preferred for the same reasons as now: passing light into the room.
 
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