My strategy was to locate possible birth records for the children (James and Mary) and match the parents across them. I had to find two records: one for a James born to John and Mary and one for a Mary born to John and Mary. However, since the US census records I found had been inconsistent in reporting ages, I had to search more broadly than just single years. I chose a 5 year span for each. If several matches existed, I would still be able to narrow things down because the age gap between the children had been consistent enough from census to census: James was about 2 years older than Mary.
There turned out to be fewer matches than I expected -- only one for each of them to parents with the correct names. Fortunately, the age gap matches so I'm can say with relative certainty, it's them.
 |
| Results for "James McPherson" |
 |
| Results for "Mary McPherson" |
So, as it turns out, the records I had found previously (in a somewhat less rigorous search) were in fact the correct ones.
I also decided to search for other children born to the couple, since they had married several years before James was born. Sure enough, there was a match: Jessie McPherson was born in 1849 (another Jessie in the family!). She doesn't appear in any of the US records, so I also searched to see if there was a Scottish death record. I only found a couple, but they weren't until 1905 and 1920. If she didn't die as an infant, why didn't she go with them to America? Or, maybe she did, but didn't survive the journey.
 |
| Jessie McPherson: born 1849 |
The last thing to note is that I've started to question whether or not the census record I found earlier is actually them. There are a lot of John and Mary McPhersons on the 1851 census, and without other family members listed, it's hard to be sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment