Those Elusive Margarets

I spent much of the last two weeks searching Ancestry.com for my Margarets. I managed to find a census record for Detroit, Michigan in 1930 that showed my mom, her sister and parents living on Martindale Street.

Unfortunately, I found little else on any of them, including myself. Yes, after not finding very much at all on my relatives, I decided to search for something I knew existed: my birth registry. Nope. I also looked for a Pennsylvania cousin (maybe Michigan birth records aren't there?) - no luck there; then I looked for my siblings - nope. I even watched the "help for searching" video (maybe I'd missed some key check box or something that would magically make the records appear). Still nope.

At one point in one of the based-in-Scotland searches I got a little notice box saying that Scottish records aren't readily available. No doubt ScotlandsPeople sees Ancestry as a competitor and being Scots, are making sure their interests are protected.

So, where from here? I found a few more books on Scottish Genealogy at the local library (kudos to AADL!) and they give some additional hints and places to look. One includes a good deal of Scottish history and insight on traditions impact the search for relatives. It includes many pictures, drawings, maps and sidebars explaining naming conventions and the evolution of shires and counties and parishes over time. I think Amazon is going to make a sale soon (there's always a good excuse to buy a book!)

Once I have more detailed background information on how things might have been I'm going to try again on ScotlandsPeople and look at parish records. The 1930 census listing I found shows that my grandmother noted that her father came from North Scotland. That covers quite a bit of territory and without more detail it might be hard to narrow down my search for him. But, in 1976, I spent a weekend with some cousins (some number of times removed) in Thurso, Scotland "away up in the North," not far from John O'Groats, a harbor town on the Northeastern coast line. You can take the boat from there to the Orkneys and the Shetlands.

I managed to find the little notebook I had on the trip which includes addresses of various people, including a descendent of the elusive William Money (my maternal great-grandfather). The information in the book I'm reading gives me pointers for resources that might help me find him. I found a another name in my little book: my grandmother's sister, Chriss. Having her address might help me find the missing Margarets by going "sideways."

That's where the search stands for now. Hopefully I will be able to make efficient use of my credits on ScotlandsPeople. Ciao for now.

The Search Begins

I wrote earlier about wanting to find out more about my mother’s family in Scotland. I spent several hours last week starting to see what I could find. Before I logged on, I read a number of books so I had some idea of where and how I should proceed. The books included a “dummy’s guide” to genealogy as well as two books on genealogy in Scotland. The consistent advice is to start by interviewing the older family members about what they know (hopefully) and remember. Then collect any source documents that the family has, such as birth and marriage certificates.

What I Started With

The interviews aren’t an option since the people who might know passed away, although I have some notes based on a conversation I had with my grandmother when I visited her in California in the early 80s. I also have a long article in the San Pedro News Pilot about my grandmother as she approached her 91^st birthday (it was published shortly before she died getting ready for lunch for her “poker buddies”).

The original documents goal is a little easier: I have my mother’s original birth certificate and digital copies of her parent’s petitions for naturalization (which they filed separately for reasons unknown). My brother, Ken, found the naturalization papers last summer when he tried to determine if/when our Mom became a citizen. I also have my father’s birth certificate, but I’m not planning on looking into the Polish side of things at this time.

Going Online

I started with ScotlandsPeople.com, the main source of genealogy information for those were born, lived, and died in Scotland. You can search and get match counts for free but you need to pay to see the list of possibilities and pay again to look at a particular record. I took the plunge and bought 30 credits, quickly spent, and bought 30 more. Each set of 30 credits costs about $23.

I started looking for people I had specific details about: I knew my grandmother was born on October 11, 1892 and my grandfather on February 22, 1897; they married on September 9, 1919. I wasn’t able to find my grandmother’s birth registry (I found one match but the names and birth year were wrong – based on other things I know). A search for my grandfather’s birth registry resulted in 26 matches, more than I could easily narrow down more than I already had. The search for their marriage certificate yielded the “right” one although it’s very hard to read (it's also the same record my brother found last summer during his research). You can make out the information you know, but trying to read the unknowns (like my grandmother’s parents’ names and address) aren’t really legible enough to do anything with.

I then tried to find records of my great grandmother (my grandmother’s mother) but no luck – no records at all based on what I “know.” I also tried to find her death record, again no luck. I tried various census records (although the latest census available online is 1911 (due to privacy concerns) and looked at several records (chewing through the credits) but the ages and the names and relationships didn’t match. I also looked for some other family members, hoping to find someone somewhere but I either ended up with no matches or way too many (there are a LOT of McDonalds in Scotland, also a lot of Moneys and Christies). I have several credits left but I’m not sure exactly what I should look for at this point.

Where From Here

I then spent some time poking around CyndiLiast.com, which is a genealogy resource site. I checked out US death registries (looking for my mom’s sister, Sara’s, death information (for some family medical history I’m trying to put together) but found nothing – maybe because she never worked??? – the sites were all based on the Social Security Death Index (I did find my Mom’s and my Dad’s but since I have their death certificates – as family pack-rat – I didn’t really need to find them).

After a little thinking, I decided to look and see if I could find my dad’s military records (I’d read a book about the Second World War in the Aleutians and that was where he was stationed). Unfortunately, all military records for US forces are through Ancestry.com – a pay to “play” site. The prices for annual world access (which is what I need given that so much, on both sides of the family, happened overseas) is pretty steep, but only $30 for a month. So I think I’m going to wait a few weeks (have some busy times planned) and do some planning for what I want to look for where, with priorities, then buy into the site for 30 days to see what I can find. Then decide where I go from there.

I’ll keep you posted!

The Myth and Magic of the Seven Margarets

I was named Margaret according to the tradition in my mother's family: the first born daughter of the first born daughter was named Margaret. My mom didn't follow the tradition exactly (which was Margaret plus your Grandmother's maiden name), or I would have been named Margaret Money, which would have been too much; so she named me Margaret Janet. I was told the tradition went back at least seven generations. While creating a family tree for a college social anthropology class in the 70s I was able to trace back only six generations, including me. So maybe there was a little bit of the myth in the story.

The magic was how special I felt to be part of such a long-standing tradition. My mother (Margaret Christie McDonald), fairly untraditional for her times, always told me I could do or be anything I wanted. She went to the school board when I was in junior high so I could enroll in a drafting class as the only girl (back then only boys were allowed to take drafting). I wanted to be an architect so drafting class was an important step in that direction. While my dad said "You're good at math, you should be a math teacher" my mom stood up for me and helped me go beyond society's norms.

My grandma (my mom's mom, Margaret Galloway Money) spoiled me rotten (or so I was told); I just thought I was very special being the first daughter of her first daughter. She was a feisty sprite of a woman (all of 4'11") with a halo of white hair and always a broad grin on her face. Her Scot's accent added special spice to "ma wee bairn" as she sang me to sleep at night.

As another of my year's adventures, I'm going to take up genealogy and see how far back I can go to trace the six or seven (or more?) Margarets in my family. One twist is that my mother was born in Glasgow, Scotland. One of the myths in the family is that we're related to The Royals (on the wrong side of the blanket, as they say). I have a bible handed down through the Margaret's that was given to my great-great-great-grandmother (Margaret ?? Galloway) by a "Lady Douglas" in 1845. So I hope to discover who Lady Douglas was and how we were part of her life.