looking for David youngs birth

[babylyla]

Hello, im a newbie, I hope im in the right place.
I have been doing my paternal tree for 16 years, when I got found David young or is it williamson?.. this is my problem....
David is my 5 x grandfather marrried Marion Selkirk in Duddington in1802
1841 census they are living in Adamsrow and David is 55, Marion 60
I can not find Davids birth...
on his childrens birth and christening records says " father is David williamson or Young" is this why I cant find him? is he illegitimate or born under a different name?
I would appreciate help of any kind I have searched and searched and i cant find his birth
Helen

[LesleyB]

Hi babylyla

And welcome to Talking Scot.

Is this the family you mean? Adamsrow in Newton, Midlothian: (From freecen http://www.freecen.org.uk)

Place: Newton -Midlothian , Adamsrow
YOUNG David M 55 Coal Miner Midlothian
YOUNG Marion 60
YOUNG Jeannet 25
YOUNG John 20
YOUNG Margaret 23
YOUNG Andrew 15

Bearing in mind that ages were supposed to be rounded down to the nearest 5, David's actual age could be anywhere between 55-59 if he gave his age accurately. It states above that he was born somewhere in Midlothian.

Have you seen the full wording of the 1802 OPR entry for the marriage? Any clues there?
What was the first born son to the couple called, and the second born daughter? ( I can see some of what would appear to be children above, but there may be older ones too...) Do you know the names of Marion's parents? Do you know when David died?

Best wishes
Lesley

[killearnan]

Is this him in 1851? Thinking approximately the right area and that Marion could have been named for her mother, and son John is old enough to expect that Marion and the older John would have been married by the 1841 census.

The Latch, Kirknewton and East Calder, Midlothian
John Marshall 33 head
Marion Marshall 34 wife
John Marshall 10
Robert Marshall 9
Barbara Marshall 7
Charles Nicol 14 servant
David Young 69 father-in-law, b. Kirknewton, employed in dairy

If so, maybe he died in/after 1855, in which case there may be a death record with hints.

Don't see an obvious 1861 listing, at least as viewed in Ancestry's abstracts.

On the name: in many cases, an alternate name like that can mean his parents weren't married. However, it's also worth remembering that (pre-20th century) names could be a lot more fluid than they are now. For example, it could mean that his parents died when he was a child and his mother's parents/sister and her husband/etc. with a different family name raised him and so he was often called by that name. Or his parents died and he was informally adopted by another family (that's what happened to my great-grandfather ~ never legally adopted because it was before the laws allowing such were in place, but he took his adopted family's name as his [and eventually mine.....]).

[babylyla]

Is this him in 1851? Thinking approximately the right area and that Marion could have been named for her mother, and son John is old enough to expect that Marion and the older John would have been married by the 1841 census.

The Latch, Kirknewton and East Calder, Midlothian
John Marshall 33 head
Marion Marshall 34 wife
John Marshall 10
Robert Marshall 9
Barbara Marshall 7
Charles Nicol 14 servant
David Young 69 father-in-law, b. Kirknewton, employed in dairy

If so, maybe he died in/after 1855, in which case there may be a death record with hints.

Don't see an obvious 1861 listing, at least as viewed in Ancestry's abstracts.

Hello
Thank you for taking the time to reply and the look up, im sorry to say this is not the David im looking for...Lesley above has the right family...
Thanks again
Helen

On the name: in many cases, an alternate name like that can mean his parents weren't married. However, it's also worth remembering that (pre-20th century) names could be a lot more fluid than they are now. For example, it could mean that his parents died when he was a child and his mother's parents/sister and her husband/etc. with a different family name raised him and so he was often called by that name. Or his parents died and he was informally adopted by another family (that's what happened to my great-grandfather ~ never legally adopted because it was before the laws allowing such were in place, but he took his adopted family's name as his [and eventually mine.....]).

[babylyla]

Hello Lesley
Thank you, yes that is the family. I have all those details and Davids wife Marions parents are Emphemia Black & Robert Selkirk 27th Oct 1776 all their children where born liberton, Gilmerton, Tranent. David died in Newton from Asthma on 30th june 1849 at 68 yrs Newton MNL 185/3 reported by James Young ( son)
I just cant find Davids birth record, as I have said, all his childrens records show the fathers name as David williamson or young.... ?... I dont know why.I have contacted Midlothian records etc......nothing!
I even know he lived in No 17 cottage in Adamsrow .........I wonder, he was a miner and lived in a miners cottage, would the mining community have his parent's names......
Thanks Lesley
Helen

Hi babylyla

And welcome to Talking Scot.

Is this the family you mean? Adamsrow in Newton, Midlothian: (From freecen http://www.freecen.org.uk)

Place: Newton -Midlothian , Adamsrow
YOUNG David M 55 Coal Miner Midlothian
YOUNG Marion 60
YOUNG Jeannet 25
YOUNG John 20
YOUNG Margaret 23
YOUNG Andrew 15

Bearing in mind that ages were supposed to be rounded down to the nearest 5, David's actual age could be anywhere between 55-59 if he gave his age accurately. It states above that he was born somewhere in Midlothian.

Have you seen the full working of the 1802 OPR entry for the marriage? Any clues there?
What was the first born son to the couple called, and the second born daughter? ( I can see some of what would appear to be children above, but there may be older ones too...) Do you know the names of Marion's parents? Do you know when David died?

Best wishes
Lesley

[killearnan]

I just cant find Davids birth record, as I have said, all his childrens records show the fathers name as David williamson or young.... ?... I dont know why.I have contacted Midlothian records etc......nothing!

The birth record may not exist.

In the time frame you are looking for, the records are baptismal records, which may or may not list the actual birthdate, depending on how careful the minister was in recording details. The local minister may not have written down the information when he baptized baby David so a record never existed to begin with. Or, if the minister did record it, the record may not have survived ~ fires, floods, mold, absent-minded ministers packing the register away.... they all happened.

Or his family may have been Catholic, Anglican, or part of one of the break-off Presbyterian/Church of Scotland groups (while the major secession from the Church of Scotland was in 1843, there had been smaller, earlier divisions which occurred in {IIRC} about 1732/3 and in the early 1760s). Since the OPRs that are on-line at Scotlandspeople for before 1855 are the records of the Church of Scotland and not civil/government records, that's what church the bulk of the people recorded in them belonged to. There are some records in the OPRs for non-Church of Scotland families (I have one ancestor baptized by the Associate Congregation minister recorded in the 1790s, for example, and a Catholic ancestor whose burial in the 1830s is listed).

Some records for non-Church of Scotland congregations pre-1855/civil registration are extant ~ where and how accessible they are depends on many factors. Many Catholic records are on-line at Scotlandspeople, for example, but I'm not sure how well records were kept by Catholic parishes in the 1780s. Many other records are archived in Edinburgh but not on-line yet or well-indexed

Have you identified any siblings of David? Witnesses to his marriage and his children's baptisms can be good places to start looking for those ~ also often worth scanning a page or two each side of the census entry you have ~ no guarantee that other people named Young living two farms away are related, but it can't hurt to glance long enough to see who was around. If you can find a brother who was a witness to David's marriage or to a niece/nephew's baptism, and the brother lived until 1855, his death record may list parents.

If David was illegitimate, and you are really lucky, the church session records may still exist and mention his birth and have details of his parents. Again, what records exist varies greatly by parish, so hard to answer where to go without having narrowed the search area down a bit.

Is there a gravestone for David? If so, are other people named Young buried in the same cemetery?

Overall, based on my own experience and what I've seen other people find, unless you get really lucky or a family was prominent/land-owning (enough to have detailed wills, for example), getting much more than one generation back beyond the 'magical' 1850s (first census with actual ages and birthplaces in 1851; the start of civil registration in 1855) is (maybe) a 50/50 proposition. Since you have identified David's death in 1849, he may be your one generation before the good records start

Don't mean that last paragraph to discourage you ~ but it's also worthwhile to be realistic about what can be done.... Of course, I'm still puttering away on my various pre-1850s line, ever hopeful that something new will appear, 'cuz that does happen, too. A register is found in an old barn, a new set of records is digitized and put on-line, a distant cousin has the other half of a puzzle and finds me.... even once had someone email me that she'd seen a letter from an ancestor for sale for the stamp on eBay with details about a family scandal from the 1820s in Pennsylvania; the letter had sold by the time she tracked me down, but she had transcribed what she could see of the letter ~ oh, the new information that had ;-)

Hope this helps!
BJ

[babylyla]

Hi
Thanks for that, took some digestion:) however you have actually given me some help! im about to try and find records with family who could be witnesses. David is in a poor grave in Newton, his daughter is also beside him..Margaret young....she dies 1 year after him from Dropsy.....right im on the search!!
Thanks again
Helen

I just cant find Davids birth record, as I have said, all his childrens records show the fathers name as David williamson or young.... ?... I dont know why.I have contacted Midlothian records etc......nothing!

The birth record may not exist.

In the time frame you are looking for, the records are baptismal records, which may or may not list the actual birthdate, depending on how careful the minister was in recording details. The local minister may not have written down the information when he baptized baby David so a record never existed to begin with. Or, if the minister did record it, the record may not have survived ~ fires, floods, mold, absent-minded ministers packing the register away.... they all happened.

Or his family may have been Catholic, Anglican, or part of one of the break-off Presbyterian/Church of Scotland groups (while the major secession from the Church of Scotland was in 1843, there had been smaller, earlier divisions which occurred in {IIRC} about 1732/3 and in the early 1760s). Since the OPRs that are on-line at Scotlandspeople for before 1855 are the records of the Church of Scotland and not civil/government records, that's what church the bulk of the people recorded in them belonged to. There are some records in the OPRs for non-Church of Scotland families (I have one ancestor baptized by the Associate Congregation minister recorded in the 1790s, for example, and a Catholic ancestor whose burial in the 1830s is listed).

Some records for non-Church of Scotland congregations pre-1855/civil registration are extant ~ where and how accessible they are depends on many factors. Many Catholic records are on-line at Scotlandspeople, for example, but I'm not sure how well records were kept by Catholic parishes in the 1780s. Many other records are archived in Edinburgh but not on-line yet or well-indexed

Have you identified any siblings of David? Witnesses to his marriage and his children's baptisms can be good places to start looking for those ~ also often worth scanning a page or two each side of the census entry you have ~ no guarantee that other people named Young living two farms away are related, but it can't hurt to glance long enough to see who was around. If you can find a brother who was a witness to David's marriage or to a niece/nephew's baptism, and the brother lived until 1855, his death record may list parents.

If David was illegitimate, and you are really lucky, the church session records may still exist and mention his birth and have details of his parents. Again, what records exist varies greatly by parish, so hard to answer where to go without having narrowed the search area down a bit.

Is there a gravestone for David? If so, are other people named Young buried in the same cemetery?

Overall, based on my own experience and what I've seen other people find, unless you get really lucky or a family was prominent/land-owning (enough to have detailed wills, for example), getting much more than one generation back beyond the 'magical' 1850s (first census with actual ages and birthplaces in 1851; the start of civil registration in 1855) is (maybe) a 50/50 proposition. Since you have identified David's death in 1849, he may be your one generation before the good records start

Don't mean that last paragraph to discourage you ~ but it's also worthwhile to be realistic about what can be done.... Of course, I'm still puttering away on my various pre-1850s line, ever hopeful that something new will appear, 'cuz that does happen, too. A register is found in an old barn, a new set of records is digitized and put on-line, a distant cousin has the other half of a puzzle and finds me.... even once had someone email me that she'd seen a letter from an ancestor for sale for the stamp on eBay with details about a family scandal from the 1820s in Pennsylvania; the letter had sold by the time she tracked me down, but she had transcribed what she could see of the letter ~ oh, the new information that had ;-)

Hope this helps!
BJ