This past summer I spoke with my wife’s Aunt Jean at her 90th birthday party. A special treat to celebrate such a birthday! I was trying to trace her ancestors in Scotland and had found there were two highly similar families that she may have descended from. The data I had was really inconclusive especially when you consider that years of birth etc. in the census are often out by a year or more.
Aunt Jean recalled a few names and the existence of some twins perhaps — both of which led me to pursue research more directly on one particular family. Recently, I made some giant steps when I made contact with someone from Scotland who was searching for the relatives that had emigrated!
A few exciting things have tumbled out already. It turns out that my wife’s mom’s family were not the only emigrants from her family — other family members emigrated to Alberta (first) and thence moved to B.C. And, it also turns out that this family only lived in Scotland a few generations — based on the Scotland census, it appears that they emigrated from Ireland to Scotland in the early to mid 1800′s.
The birth certificate of my wife’s great-grandfather is displayed below — the bottom third of the image is that of James Innes in 1870.
You can learn so many things talking with others!
