Tuesday, April 25, 2023

What a sad story. Jane McCandlish Murdoch.

I was working on going through some Ancestry Hints this morning and came across some records that, of course, led me down the rabbit hole. I was researching Jane McCandlish Murdock a second cousin once removed. 

Jane was born in 1854 in Scotland to William and Margaret Smeaton Murdock. She was listed as living with her parents and siblings in the 1861, 1871, 1881, and 1891 censuses in Scotland. I also found a record that she had been admitted to the Woolie Asylum in Dunbartonshire, Scotland on the 21st of February in 1876 when she was 22 years old. I have yet to find records of how long she was there. 

 On the 10th of June in 1892, Jane married Alexander Edwards. Jane was thirty-eight years old and Alexander was 25 years old when they married. Alexander was a chemist's storeman. On the 27th of August of 1894, Alexander and Jane had a son, John Wilson Edwards. Sadly, Jane died on the 27th of October 1897 when she was forty-three years old, leaving a two-year-old baby behind. Her death certificate listed her parents and stated that she was thirty-nine years old. It said that she died of Acute Mania and Meningitis. 

Her father was deceased by then. The story gets sadder. I decided to see if I could find out what became of the baby that Jane had left. I found that in 1901, John Wilson Edwards and his father Alexander were living with Alexander's parents. The next record I found was a death record for John. He died on the 16th of June in 1915 at the Royal Lunatic Asylum of Aberdeen. He was twenty-one years old, single, and a schoolteacher. He died from Pyaemia (blood poisoning) from slight abrasions of the face that he had had for about one and a half months. His father's sister was the Informant for the death certificate.

 As of now, I have not located any other information on Alexander Edwards. I did see a listing for that name who was buried close to where John had been buried. That Alexander Edwards died in 1913.

Sunday, April 23, 2023

Old Fashioned Genealogy

There are often mentions in different posts, blogs, etc. of the importance of writing and requesting records for genealogy.  Not all records can be found online, but you can find where to request the records that you are looking for online

This past week I sent off 3 different requests for records:

-One to the Arkansas History Commission for Confederate Pension Records for Thomas P Saunders

-One to the North Dakota Bismark-Mandan Historical and Genealogical Society for Naturalization Records for Olaus Hansson

-One to NARA for Land Warrants for two grants given to William Adamson, one in 1836 and the other in 1856

I was quite pleased with myself that I took the time to find where these records would be and that I actually sat down and requested them! I am very hopeful that I might learn some valuable and/or interesting information from my requests. I will post what I find!