The Hunter family of Glenegedale

 

                                                                    Islay Airport, Glenegedale, Islay, Scotland

In past genealogical research, most of the family lines I followed led me back further in time, going back generation by generation following one particular person or couple each time. Those were the people I wanted to know about. What did I care if they had 10 siblings or none? Of course, with the advent of DNA testing, that type of research has changed. Now we want to know more about the whole family, all of the children and back in those days there could be a large number of offspring.

I strayed further afield when researching the Hunter family of Glenegedale. That was partly because I didn't find a baptismal or birth record for Mary Hunter, my 3 x great grandmother. (I eventually proved her parentage to my satisfaction by using the Scottish naming pattern.) It was also because there are lots of records related to Islay especially for families that stayed on the land and Hunters from this family lived in Glenegedale for generations. I was able to follow the names and the land through resources like The Day Book of Daniel Campbell of Shawfield 1767 as well as by using other information found on LDS films.

Sadly, I was unable to walk the land that my ancestors farmed through all those generations. The yearly valuation records for the land showed how the last Hunter tenant was gradually eased off the land to make way for the Islay Airport. 

My blog posts for June 4, 2022 https://genihistorypath.blogspot.com/2022/06/ and November 11, 2018 https://genihistorypath.blogspot.com/2018/11/ mention my use of valuation rolls to find out about the Hunter tenancy on the land in Glenegedale.

Looking back at old research

 

                                                                    A scenic view on Islay

The first family I started my research with were the Gilchrists. It was my maternal grandmother's maiden name and I knew that her sister, my great aunt Peg, had done research on the family back in the day. That was in the days before computers were a thing. In her quest for information she traced them back to Islay and even visited there. Unfortunately, I don't know what she found there because her research wasn't saved or at least, if it was, I have no idea where it is.

Still, as a family to begin with in the infancy of the internet the Gilchrists were a good one. The OPRs (Old Parish Registers) were available at my local Family History Centre. I think they were on microfiche kept in the actual centre so they didn't have to be ordered from Salt Lake. It was on the OPRs that I found the marriage of James Gilchrist and Mary Hunter, my 3 x great grandparents.

I have no idea if Auntie Peg even got as far as the marriage entry with her research. However, I do know that she visited Islay where her grandparents came from. I have a postcard that shows the hotel where she stayed and, on my first visit to Islay, I stayed there as well. So, in a way, her research did inspire mine.

Looking for links to Cromwell's army

 

                                                             Civil War reenactors on Northampton University grounds 

When I listed my military ancestors recently, I'd found most of them listed in the BCGS' 2023 Book of Remembrance. Many of the people who contributed to that book had ancestors listed from much earlier conflicts than I had been able to find. At the time I promised myself to see if I could find any of my forbears in conflicts prior to the American Revolution. Perhaps I could find participants in the English Civil War. I thought I had a good chance as some of the battles took place near or in Northamptonshire where I know part of my family lived.

The wars took place from 1642 to 1651. That was too late for one branch of my ancestors who went to the New World before that time. But my nonconformists, the Stranges, Devonshires, Kinchs and Rolls of Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire might conceivably have been involved. But how to check?

That's when my new project of going through my genealogy articles and magazines came in handy. I came across a place to check in https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/cromwell-army-officers . That looked promising. But no luck. There were no officers in Cromwell's army with my ancestors' last names. But then I looked further and there were also Palmers and Paynes in my family back then. Those names showed up in the database. So perhaps there were family members with those names among Cromwell's officers or indeed it could be that my ancestors fought but weren't officers or maybe even fought for the Royalists. It will take more digging to find out if there are existing records that could help.

Tackling a genealogy article backlog

 

                                                                 Just a few of the magazines I have stashed away

It has taken me a while (years actually) but I'm finally tackling some of the genealogy reading material that has gathered into stacks and piles while I promised myself that I would get to it later. It seems that later is now. I'm tackling not only the many genealogy magazines that I bought but never read over the years but also the genealogy society newsletters from the days when societies used to issue them in physical booklets. Didn't read those either.

The newsletters are fast reads, mostly dealing with events long past and member stories that I can now ignore as they don't fit into my research areas. The genealogy magazines are a different story. While I blithely skip over letters to the editor or new of genealogy gatherings long past, some of the articles contain information that does fit into the history I am searching or gives advice about using research facilities that could be of help in my searches. Hopefully the advice given isn't hopelessly outdated. 

I'm not sure how long this project will take but I'm looking forward to the piles and stacks dwindling as my knowledge increases.

Adding descendants to my family tree

The Matheson part of my family tree needs more branches

Back in February, I wrote about the need to concentrate on adding descendants to my family tree in order to help identify DNA matches. I haven't gotten very far with that aim, although my Ancestry family tree is a bit better than the information I have on my family tree software. Because I was dragging my feet on adding collateral branches to my tree, the first talk I attended at RootsTech went by the title of An Ever-Growing Tree: Descendency Research and DNA Matches. I thought that it would give me a push in the right direction but so far it hasn't. If the talk was available online, I'd watch it again. Unfortunately the only reminders I have are the notes I jotted down in class so now I'm searching my RootsTech playlists for any talk concentrating on the same basic ground.

I did come back from Salt Lake City with some incentive to start adding collateral relatives to one line though. I found an obit for my 3 x great uncle, Alexander Matheson which named the relatives who attended his funeral in Letcher, South Dakota. Among his nine grandchildren there were two women named: Mrs J Ruhe of Sioux Falls, SD and Mrs R L Eagen of LaCrosse, Wis. I think I've figured out who Mrs Ruhe is but Mrs R L Eagen is another story. I think I'll start researching the Matheson line to add Alexander Matheson's descendents so that I understand how the named grandchildren fit into the family especially the hard to find, Mrs R L Eagen!

Sources:

Newspapers.com – obituary of Alexander Matheson in Owen Sound Sun Times of December 18, 1920

 

Some of the more recent military ancestors from my research

 

                                                                        WWII photo of my uncles in Cape Town

Also included in the BCGS 2023 Book of Remembrance were my military ancestors who served in WWI and WWII. They appear in the following list:

WWI: Charles Edwin Cavanagh, a publican, joined the Royal Navy in 1917 and served in the Mediterranean until September of that year when he was transferred to the air arm of the navy which was taken over by the RAF which formed April 1, 1918.

WWI: Harold Strange Chambers, immigrated to Canada in 1911 and, like many British born men in Canada, he joined up for the war. He spent his time in Ontario where pilots were being trained. He acted as clerical support. His records were interesting as his next of kin was listed as his cousin Margaret Little in Australia before he married in 1918.

WWII: Charles Edwin Booth Cavanagh, joined the RAF in 1939 shortly after war was declared. He was part of the crew setting up airfields in southern England, for which he was mentioned in dispatches. After that he was sent to Singapore but rerouted to India when that city fell to the Japanese while they were en route. He was an intelligence officer during the Burma Campaign where he liaised between the allied factions.

WWII: Cyril Cavanagh, merchant seaman. One of the many men working to bring supplies to Britain. His ships were torpedoed three times but he survived the war.

WWII: June Chambers, was working as a clerk in Welwyn Garden City when she joined the Women's Land Army in 1942. She resigned in 1945.

After trawling through the entries I sent in for the 2023 Book of Remembrance, I became aware that I left out some other family connections. Quite a few, in fact. The photo at the top of this blog post is a reminder of that. Looks like it's time to expand my list and, in some cases, flesh out the stories that I have.

Earlier military ancestors from my research

 

                                                    Paul Revere statue in Boston, a symbol of the American Revolution

After going through the 2023 Book of Remembrance which the BCGS put together in 2023, I'm amazed at how far back some members have been able to track their military ancestors. There are pages and pages of forebears who fought before my entries come into play. I've only been able to find records back to the American Revolution. The partial list of military ancestors that follows are mostly from my line but at least one would be from the family I married into. They are as follows:

John Brack McNeil was part of the 82nd or Hamilton's Regiment, men who were recruited in Lanarkshire with some additions from Glasgow and the Highlands. They fought for the British in the American Revolution and were offered land grants in Pictou, Nova Scotia in 1784 when the regiment was disbanded. John McNeil took up land in Pictou but later sold up so he could take up land in Antigonish County where the Catholics had settled. (There was a priest behind this move, you can be sure.)

1781: Captain Soloman Woodworth was leading a scouting expedition along West Canada Creek near Fort Dayton when they were ambushed, 22 of the men on the American side were killed including Captain Woodworth.

1781 - 1784: Private Charles Tripp was a patriot who found in New York State. He married Jane Woodworth the daughter of Soloman Woodworth. In 1800 they moved to Percy, Newcastle, Upper Canada to take up land.

1850s: Private George Welch was a farrier in England when he signed up for a short stint in the army. He was sent to India at the time of the Indian Rebellion in the late 1850s.

1861 - 1864: Private Alexander Matheson was a young man who left his home in rural Upper Canada to find work and came back to find his family gone. He moved to Illinois just before the US Civil War started. He joined up, fought in various places including the Battle of Shiloh. He was shot and captured at Big Shanty, Georgia and discharged at Springfield, Illinois as a paroled prisoner of war.

1863 - 1888: Royal Engineer William McKay signed up at the age of 14 when his father was stationed in Ireland. William married my 2 x great aunt, Henrietta Chubb in Weymouth and then they were shipped off to Malta and had several children. He absconded with some funds, was caught, jailed, busted down to sapper and sent back to Portsmouth. After a while there he and his family were sent to Madras and he was active in the Afghan Campaign. From there they were sent to Bangalore. He retired to Sydney, Australia.

This list contains only the earlier military ancestors I have researched. I'll continue with the ancestors who were involved in later conflicts next time.