Can you help me go back a generation?.....

[Isadora]

I have got this information:

Daniel Stephen born 1818 Old Machar Aberdeen (combworker) married Elvira Bell in 1844.

Daniel's parents were William Stephen and Margaret Nicholson.

I would like to get back a generation further if possible or get some dates (marriage, birth etc) for William Stephen and Margaret Nicholson.

Also would love to know more about Elvira's parents: David Bell, a weaver, and Janet Falconer.

Elvira seems an uncommon scottish first name, I was hoping for some exotic ancestry but can't see any!

Can anyone help or suggest where/how to search, thanks a million

[Tracey]

Hi Isadora

On www.familysearch.org there is a user submitted entry for William Stephen and Margaret Nicolson not Nicholson marriage
14th August 1813 in Old Machar, Aberdeen this also matches a record on SP in 1813.
Have you checked this one out ?

Tracey

Added later.......there is also this one, the other seems more likely but who knows !
Marriages:
Spouse: MARGRET NICHOLSON Family
Marriage: 31 JUL 1830 Bower, Caithness, Scotland

[Russell]

Hi there

We had a similar quest with our Lapraik line in Ayrshire.
I created a spreadsheet for the name and laid out every record I could find on-line with parents, marriage dates, children and their order of birth.
Eventually a pattern emerged with every line following the naming pattern quite closely. This helped us figure out the likely parents for both sides of a couple. It took lots of side trips into other family lines to eliminate them but we found them and confirmed from the OPR and visits to various graveyards where the MI's gave extra info on children and grandchildren.

Slow work but very satisfying when you can finally feel convinced that you have enough evidence to say "That's THEM"

There just isn't enough recorded evidence to follow them back into the 1600's yet but that may need visits to NAS and perusals of minutes from the old parish records.

Don't get hooked on a particular spelling of a name either. Using IGI as our initial check we found the name Lapraik spelt a total (so far) of 36 different ways. It helped that we found a 16th century entry which spelt it Lickprevick.
In small parishes it is possible to use the IGI county search, select your time span then search without putting in a name. This brings up all births or marriages in that time span alphabetically. You can only access the first 25 pages of entries which is no use for larger parishes but does fine when there are fewer total entries. Even better if the name you are looking for comes near the beginning of the alphabet.

Its a slow process but, with patience, and providing they weren't Seccessionists, possible to go back at least one generation. We managed three!

Russell

[Isadora]

Many thanks to both of you. I am newish to all this and don't have as much time as I'd like to give to the project. I have these bursts where I get somewhere and then I have to leave it for a while and come back to notes that make no sense and I have no idea what to do next.

I will try the family search suggested.

[Jockbird]

Hi Isadora,

I have a few Old Machar residents from a while back and sometimes the names crop up on this website www.phlomis.plus.com

It holds submitted entries for Aberdeenshire families which can be used as a good starting ground.

Another place may be the Aberdeen FHS, unfortunately I don't have a website to hand.

Also have you tried googling them? You could try "elvira Bell" Old Machar & see if anything crops up. By putting the " " round the name it somehow gives a more specific search...there was a technical explanation once but I've forgotten it!

Good luck
Donna
x

[LesleyB]

Hi all

Another place may be the Aberdeen FHS, unfortunately I don't have a website to hand.

The Aberdeen FHS can be found in the Societies link at the top of the page.

Best wishes
Lesley