Crossing the Pond

In my first post about the McPherson branch, I explained that I had traced back several generations to find the ones who had first come to the US from Scotland:  John P and Mary McPherson, with children James F and Mary.  Since these are such common names, though, I expected I'd need to know more to find the correct records of them over here, specifically what town they came from.

Since I was at the archive looking into my Lithuanian-Scottish roots already, though, I thought I'd just have a quick look.  My suspicion was right.  A search of the 1851 census for "John McPherson" born between 1819 and 1821 must have returned something like 100 results!  Many of them were married to women named Mary.  There just isn't enough information on the census to be sure any of them was the right one.  Unfortunately James and Mary were born just after that census, or else I might have been able to narrow things down with the 4 of them listed.

One advantage I had, however, was that I knew they were Catholic.  Before 1855, the government wasn't the one that kept the records, the church did.  Two (or more?) independent sets of records were kept for Protestants and Catholics.  This meant I could rule out quite a few possibilities by searching exclusively in the Catholic registers.  The Catholic Church kept records of Baptisms, Banns, and Burials, roughly equivalent to the present day records of Births, Marriages, and Deaths.

Since I didn't know when exactly they had married, I searched first for a record of a James born to a John and Mary in 1851.  To my surprise, not many actually came up (maybe it was even just one)!

Birth:  James McPherson, 1851

I did the same for Mary born in 1853, and found a match!  The two records show that (mother) Mary's maiden name was Johnston on both, and that they were in St. Mirin's parish (it is called a "parish", right?) in Paisley, just west of Glasgow south of the Clyde.  Given how common these names were, I have to treat all of this with uncertainty, but it's hard to have a better match:  four correct names and two correct dates.

Birth:  Mary McPherson, 1853

Now that I was confident they were right ones, I searched for a marriage record using the maiden name "Johnston" and the location of Paisley.  And got a match!  It was earlier than I would have expected, in 1847, but infant mortality was high in those days.

Marriage:  John McPherson and Mary Johnston, 1847

I'm not sure why I didn't, at that point, go back and look for a census record, but I guess I was too excited about what I had found.  Eventually, I'll go back.  In the meantime, it would be nice to find some other evidence to corroborate what I've found (eg. a US death record for Mary would show her maiden name).