Moy churchyard - help

[iangmacdonald]

If there is anyone out there with easy access to the Moy churchyard, 10 miles or more south east of Inverness (OS ref NH 772342), could you check a detail for me (I'm in Surrey, its a bit far).

In the monumental inscriptions prepared by Alastair and Margaret Beattie and published by the Scottish Genealogical Society there is an entry for stone 25 at Moy that goes:

"Colin McDonald d Inverness 1846 a 60y, w Margaret Diamond d Moy 1845 a 40y"

Now Colin appears to be a 2G grandfather on my mother's side. My great grandfather, John McDonald claimed to be from Moy and gave his parents as Colin McDonald and Jessie Fraser.

A Colin McDonald married to Margaret (presumably Diamond - and there is a possible 1825 Inverness marriage) appears in the 1841 census at Moybeg with 5 children. In the 1851 census there is still a Colin McDonald at Moybeg with some of the same children and a few more - but with a new young wife, Janet.

If Margaret died in 1845, as in the MI, that works fine as far as wives go. The catch however is that in the censuses Colin gives his age as 40 and 50, i.e a birth date just after1800, whereas the MI would have him at 1786. Is there a mistake in transcribing the stone? If it says 1864 rather than 1846 then it all works out reasonably plausibly. If anyone is passing by, could they check please?

I'm strangely reluctant to go for the other possibility that there were two Colin McDonalds living at the same place ten years apart and looking after some of the same children.

[ROY M]

Hi Ian
Sorry I can't help you with the cemetery but maybe with your ages and dates. If the ages of 40 and 50 are in the 1841 Census then you have to remember that in the 1841 Census the Enumerators rounded down the ages i.e. somebody aged between 40 and 44 shows in the Census as 40.
There are other rules for this census, I think they are all listed on the GROS website.
This might tie up the ages on your inscriptions etc

Hope this helps

[LesleyB]

Hi Ian & Roy
Some Census information can be found here:
http://www.talkingscot.com/censuses/census-intro.htm
- just click on the year along the top.

Best wishes
Lesley

[iangmacdonald]

Thanks, folks. I do know about the censuses, I just didn't explain myself clearly. He is given as 40 in 1841 and 50 in 1851 so that gives us a consistent view of his birth being around 1800/1801.

Any other thoughts?

[LesleyB]

Hi Ian
No great help here, but I have direct experience of a grave stone being "out" by quite a number of years, which may or may not be the case with your one. I reckon anything is possible! I think it probably depends when the stone was erected and by whom (and what their memory was like!)

Sorry, I'm not near Inverness, so not likely to be able to check the stone for you.

best wishes
Lesley

[iangmacdonald]

Just spent a week touring the Highlands and managed to call in at the old Moy churchyard a few miles South East of Inverness - very much hidden away, but a pretty spot.

Colin McDonald's stone is prominent and in good condition. The answer to my original problem is that there was a transcription error in the published MIs. Colin did not die in 1846, the stone has it as 1866 and I've since found the GROS record for 1866, and indeed an 1861 census record (by which time he had moved to Inverness and become a Flesher).

I'm still left with a problem over his exact birth date. The stone says he was 60 = 1806. The death record says he was 57 = 1809. Census records suggest anything back to 1799. No plausible birth records show up on Scotlandspeople.

The death record says his father was Lachlan McDonald, an innkeeper but gives no mother. The only record of a Colin to a Lachlan is for Inverness but is in 1792 - could he really have lived his life (at least from 1841) believing himself to be 10 years younger than he actually was?

Thanks for all you interest.

Ian