The Scots Connection

Happy New Year!!! Here it is January again, with another year of family history behind us, and a whole year of adventure ahead.

This issue marks the start of our sixth year of publication. I hope to keep the family of Matt Coubrough and Liz Brown as the main focus of this scribble, but I am quickly running out of information. As I go further afield, the records I find are more scattered, and it takes longer to find anything useful. Stories may have to jump about in time, and there will be more about other branches of the tribe. Of course, we always want to hear your version of the family history. There will always be room for that.

Matt & Jean (Allan) Coubrough

On our last visit, early in 1851, Matt and Jean were about to become the parents of a new baby, another Matthew. Their oldest son, Jim, had already left home and may have already married Annie MacDonald. The other children were still at home. The oldest three--Robert, 18, Jane 16, and Annie, 11--were employed in a textile factory, possibly the same one where their father was a calico printer. Six-year-old twins Malcolm and William were still at home with their mother and their two-year-old sister Margaret.

Jean and Matt's youngest son, Matthew Gibb Coubrough, was born on Christmas day, 1851. Her being 41 years old and him being her tenth child, she was likely glad to have him out in the world. He eventually grew up to marry a girl named Margaret Dowall and raise a family ⁽¹⁾ of his own, but his poor mother didn't live to see it. According to the 1861 census, young Matt, age 9, was living in Thornliebank with his father's cousin, Joseph Gibb, and his wife, Jane Martin. He was going to school, but of course the census gives no reason for young Matt not living with his father.

By 1854, Jean and Matt's oldest son, Jim, had married his older woman, Annie MacDonald, and they had moved to New Brunswick. On January 8^th of that year, Jean's first grandson, another Matthew, was born in that far-away land. Poor Jean would never meet him.

Before the news of the first grandchild could travel across the Atlantic, Jim's next younger brother, Robert, had started his own family closer to home. On January 3, 1854, he and his sweetheart, 22-year-old Agnes Morton, were married in the Eastwood parish church. By the time of the March 1861 census, Robert was supporting his wife and three little daughters on his colour maker's salary. Agnes was already expecting their fifth baby, who would be born in November. Agnes and Robert had also had one son: yet another Matthew. He had been born December 15, 1854, but the poor little fellow barely survived his first birthday. On January 28, 1856, baby Matthew died of "Hydroencephalus, about 4 weeks, as certified by Andrew Hamilton, Surgeon, who saw the deceased January 28^th."

Robert's next younger sister Jane, was at home for another 12 years after he married. Even though she gave her age in the marriage register as 28, she was really 31 years old when she married 29-year-old James Campbell, Porter, on December 29, 1865 in the church that had seen her own baptism as well as the marriage of her parents. Jane's mother had died before her daughter's wedding, and it was perhaps the necessity of caring for her mother that delayed Jane's own marriage. The marriage register gives no date of death, but if young Jane's mother had died soon after young Matt was born, or had been sick for a long time after his birth, that may have been the reason he lived with his cousin. ⁽²⁾ Or he may have just been closer to school there.

Of the other four children, Malcolm, age 16 in 1861, was still living at home. Whether it was because he was a sickly lad or because his father wanted something better for him, Malcolm was apprenticed to a watchmaker, rather than following the rest of the family to the calico factory. Presumably, his twin brother William and their sisters Ann and Margaret were also still at home. Margaret would have been only about 12, while their older sister, Ann, would have been about 21. Their father, Matthew, still worked in the calico factory, but now gave his trade as Colour Maker, rather than Calico Printer.
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Other branches

1. In the spring of 1999, I found two men named Alexander and Victor John Thomas Coubrough, in the Australian War Memorial records. I could find almost nothing about them, other than that they had both joined the ANZAC ⁽³⁾ at Fitzroy, Victoria (now a suburb of Melbourne). I knew that Alexander had been returned to Australia in December 1915, probably badly injured after Gallipoli, and that he had died at Launceston, Tasmania, in 1972. I knew that Victor had also been at Gallipoli, but he was sent to France, to the Somme afterwards. He died on the Somme in the summer of 1916, probably never having been back home to Australia. As to how they were connected to any other Coubroughs, or to each other, they were purely a mystery.

I had about given up hope of ever tracking them down. Then, one night not long ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Vital Statistics of the State of Victoria had joined those of New South Wales on the Internet. Though I still haven't grafted their twig onto a main trunk of the tree, I did find a couple generations of ancestors for them.

Victor John Thomas, born 1890, was the eldest of five children of Charles Purvis Coubrough and Ruth Ellen Roberts, who had been married in 1888, in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Alexander Thomson, born 1895, was Ruth and Charles's baby boy; Victor's younger brother. In between were twins Lily Louise Letcham and Violet Wilhelmina Lucy, born 1892; and Roy Charles William, born 1893. All three of these unfortunate children died before their first birthdays. It must have been devastating for Charles and Ruth when first their baby Alexander came home seriously wounded, then their eldest was reported dead in France only six months later.

Charles Purvis Coubrough, was born January 23, 1863, in Glasgow, the fourth of eight children of John Coubrough and his wife, Wilhelmina Thomson. John, a baker, and Wilhelmina had been married June 12, 1857, in Glasgow. Their other children were: John, b 1858; William, b 1859; Alexander, b 1861; Charles, b 1863; Mary Jane, b 1865; Robert, b 1867; Elizabeth Kerr, b 1875; and Thomas Purves, b. 1872. William was only a few months old when he died of bronchitis in 1860. Ten-year-old Mary Jane died of scarlet fever in March 1875. A month later, the same fever took little Elizabeth only two days before her fifth birthday. Alexander and Thomas died the same summer as their sisters. What a terrible year that must have been for this poor family.

Since he was married there at the age of 25, Charles obviously went to Australia as a very young man, but I haven't yet found out what happened to John and Robert, the only others who appear to have also survived childhood.

Charles's father, John, born about 1833, was the third of four children of John Coubrough, born about 1807, and his wife Mary McVean. John and Mary's children were: Robert, 1826; John, 1830; John, 1833; and Jane, 1834. Obviously the first John died as a very young child, and I haven't yet tracked down Robert or Jane.

2. One of the first families I found in Australia was that of John Coubrough and Margaret Herald. The 1866 birth register entry of their son James marked their first appearance in the Scots records, so I had no idea when or where they had been married, or how many other children they might have. One day, about a year later, I stumbled across them in an index of the Australian Vital Statistics. There I found they had been married in 1857, in Melbourne, and that they had four other children, but I still didn't know who John's father might have been.

In September of last year, I found them at last, in the same Victoria State Records where I had found Victor and Alexander. There was an extract of John and Margaret's marriage record. It gave their dates and places of birth, and the names of all four of their parents. From this record, it was fairly obvious that John and Margaret didn't follow the children's naming pattern very closely, but did seem to prove which branch John belonged to.

Margaret, b. 1835, in Limerick, Ireland, was the daughter of Thomas Herald and Joanna O'Brien. John, born 1819, in Fintry parish, Stirling, Scotland, was the oldest child of William Coubrough and Christian Dunn. William and Christian had five children: John, 1819; Margaret, 1821; Catherine, 1823; James, 1825; and Janet Muirhead, 1828. James was a "spirit merchant" who married a widow named Christina MacKay Colqhoun in 1848. When James died in 1874, they had been married for 26 years, but as far as I can tell, they had no children.

Christian's husband William was born sometime between about 1768 and 1800. He named his first son John, so I have assumed that was his father's name, but I still haven't found anyone who fits the description.

John and Margaret had eight children: Thomas, 1858; Kestrina, 1860; Joanna, 1862; Mary Ann, 1864; James, 1866; John, 1868; Catherine, 1870; and Donald, 1873. The first four were born in Australia, and the last three in Glasgow. Vital statistics records only give dates and names, so we have no idea why a man with three young children and a pregnant wife might set off on such a long sea voyage. Thomas, their first-born, was only seven years old when he died in 1865. Perhaps they had grown tired of the harsh land that had claimed their only son, or perhaps they were just homesick. At any rate, soon after Thomas's death, they turned their faces homeward. James, b July 8, 1866, was registered in Glasgow, but had actually been born at sea on the way back to Scotland.

It's hard to imagine what a trip that must have been. It was generally about a four-month sail, when all went well. There was usually only water for drinking and cooking at the best of times. Even a bird-bath was a luxury.

The ship's captain was usually obliged to provide food for passengers. He was not obliged to provide good food. Many passengers brought their own food, as that sometimes reduced the cost of the passage, but there was no way to keep food fresh--or even fit to eat--for the entire journey. Sometimes live animals like pigs and chickens were taken on board. They would be butchered along the way to put off as long as possible the change to salt meat and ship's biscuit ⁽⁴⁾.

If you were rich enough to travel in a cabin on an upper deck, you might have got some fresh air and sunlight. You might have even had a bed. If you travelled at the cheaper rates, there was generally a single "berth" for the whole family. A berth was a flat wooden bench, about six or eight feet square, about four feet high and open on three sides. There were often side rails which consisted of a rough plank nailed or pinned to the sides of the bench. There were no doors or curtains and you brought your own bedding. There was no place to wash it on board, and if you trailed it along in the ocean, it might not get dry before you wanted to sleep in it again.

Paying passengers were usually allowed on deck for fresh air in good weather. In stormy weather, everyone had to go below, and the hatch covers were closed to prevent the ship taking on water. Depending on how early it was in the voyage and how much money the captain was willing to waste on passenger comfort, there may or may not have been a dim, smoky oil lamp or a candle to help keep away the gloom. If there was no lantern or candle, the passenger quarters would be so dark that you couldn't tell if your eyes were open or closed.

If the weather was bad enough to have to close the hatches. Imagine: You are cramped in your 6-foot square box, with your husband or wife, your three children (the oldest of whom is only five). You try not to scratch the sore places that are already raw from the bites of fleas, lice and bedbugs. The blackness is so complete you can't tell if your eyes are open or closed. What air there is reeks of damp, sweaty, dirty wool clothes and bodies--including your own--that haven't been washed for months, but you are so used to it that you hardly notice. The sound and smell of people vomiting the little they've had to eat. Terrified children crying. The ship rolling and pitching under you.

If there was no wind, the hatches might be open giving light and air, and the deck would be less alive under your feet. But both food and water would be rationed. There would be no washing whatsoever, and not enough to eat or drink. Wooden ships always leaked, and nothing was ever completely dry below the decks. What food there was, was often not fit to eat but you ate it anyway. If water got into the ship's biscuit, it would go mouldy. If there was cheese, it was probably wormy, but you ate it anyway or went hungry. If water was rationed, the salt meat would make you mad with thirst.

All in all, such a long trip must have been trying at the best of times. If you were pregnant, it must have been one long nightmare. Kind of makes you wonder why anybody would want to travel!

I have not yet discovered where or when Margaret's husband John died, but she seems to have gone back to Australia sometime after the birth of her youngest child. The state records had a death record for Margaret Conbrough who died in Melbourne in1902, age 66, daughter of Thos Harold, that must have been her. There was no record of death for John, but it is perhaps not unreasonable to think that they returned to Australia together. Or she may have gone back after John died in Scotland.

I have no further information on any of John and Margaret's children, except that there was a record of a daughter named Christina, who was apparently born in 1860. The source of this girl's birth date was given as a "sibling's birth certificate." In Scotland, when civil registration began in 1855, the birth records listed not only the parent's names, but also their ages, birthplaces, marriage date and place, and the number of children already in the family. I assume that a similar system must have been used by the Victoria State Registrar. I believe there was a clerical error somewhere and that this Christina and the girl called Kestrina were the same person. They were both born in 1860, in Reedy Creek. Though possibly they were twins, it seems unlikely: While there is a birth certificate for Kestrina, there is none for Christina.

3. Last time, I mentioned that I had been in contact with a John Coubrough, of Perth, Western Australia, who was the great-great-grandson of Matt Coubrough and Margaret Duncan. I have still not absolutely proven who Matt's parents were, but, based on circumstantial evidence, I have a couple of ideas.

I have long thought that Matt must have had a brother named William. In the 1881 census, a William Coubrough, age 59, gave his birthplace as Alloa parish, Clackmannan. This is the same place Matt, age 32, gave on the 1855 birth registration of his son John. I have not found any others who admit to being born in Alloa, which started me thinking that these two must be related.

I also think that William is the one who married Jane Brown in Neilston, Renfrew, in 1850, since it was in his house that Margaret Duncan was listed as a visitor in the 1851 census. Both Matt and William named their first sons John and their second daughters Catherine, presumably after their parents. This initially led me to think that they must be the sons of Catherine Andrew, and, thus, cousins of our Matt who married Jean Allan. After further study, I now think that while this has not yet been completely ruled out, it seems more likely that they were the sons of John Coubrough and Catherine Young, who would have been much closer to the ages given for Matt's parents in the 1851 census, which said Matt's mother was 47 years old. In 1851, Catherine Andrew would have been past 60. The same applies to the two John Coubroughs: The census gave Matt's father as 48. Catherine Andrew's husband, born in 1789, would have been about 62.

All that to say that I think Matt Coubrough who married Margaret Duncan was both a son of John and Catherine (Young) Coubrough, and a brother of the William Coubrough who married Jane Brown. The Victoria state record index has an entry for Matt's death, but it gave neither his father's or his mother's name.

4. Closer to our own line, I have also made a couple of discoveries about some of James Charteris Brown's relatives. We all know that he had parents (John Brown and Margaret Henderson), but did you know that his mother also had brothers and sisters? Born April 7, 1804, in Newlands parish, Peebles, she was the second child and oldest daughter of William Henderson and Janet Lambert. John, her older brother, was born September 29, 1802. There were two younger brothers--William, born May 16, 1806 and Thomas, born June 23, 1810--and two younger sisters: Janet, born September 4, 1812; and Violet, born September 5, 1816. Janet seems to have married a man named John Sharp in 1841, but they didn't have any children. Violet married John Buchan in 1844. They made up for Janet's lack by having at least six children: John, b 1847; William, b 1851; Alexander Stewart, b 1852; Jane Catherine, b 1855; Katherine Anne Stewart, b 1857; and Thomas Henderson, b 1861. I don't know what happened to any of the boys but you never know what you might find.

5. Now that we know more about James Brown's mother, let us take a closer look at his youngest son. According to the 1904 Beer's Commemorative Biographical Record, ⁽⁵⁾ Simon had "gone to the Klondike goldfields as a young man and nothing has been heard from him since." (He was obviously very close to his family!) He had not, however, spent all his time in the Klondike.

By the time the Beer's was published, Simon had married, fathered two little girls, divorced, and probably re-married. He was about 20 years old when he married 19-year-old Mary Elizabeth Beattie. I haven't found their marriage record, but their first daughter, Mary Estella Brown, was born about 1896 and the second, Hazel Beattie Brown, April 9, 1897, in Dawn Township.

They must have been divorced soon after Hazel was born: On June 4, 1898, Mary was married again, this time to August Dable. They had three more children, the first of whom was born December 26, 1898. Perhaps all this drama was the reason Simon had left for the goldfields? He eventually remarried as well, to a woman named Josephine Matilda Johnson, but I don't think he had any more children.

Mary Estella (aka Stella) married Essie Harmon and they raised one son. Hazel married Ferdinand Weber on November 11, 1915, in Salt Lake City, and they had five children. Which brings us to the question: If Barbara's children weren't Stella and Hazel, did she even have any?

6. A while back, I told you that I had connected a couple of generations of the family of William Euphemia (Alison) Coubrough whose name seems to have died out in the late 1700s. The Coubrough name has indeed died out, but the family is alive and well. I have recently had several e-mails from a woman who is William and Euphemia's 5^th great-granddaughter. Euphemia's daughter Sophia married Thomas Wilkie in 1770. They in turn had a daughter Sophia in 1777 who married Matthew Lamont in 1806. Matthew and Sophia moved to New Brunswick in about 1825, where they were in the shipbuilding business. Sadly, Sophia died in 1828. Her son Thomas Lamont had a daughter Euphemia, who eventually became the grandmother of my correspondent.

7. There is still no hard proof of who John of Ellrig's ⁽⁶⁾ parents were, but I have a new idea. I have long known that there was a John Cowburgh in St. Ninians parish in the mid-1600s. He and Margaret Steinson had a daughter Issobell christened there in 1654, as well as a daughter Christian in 1657 and a son Malcolm in 1660. But I recently found another record of showing that John Cubrughe and Margaret Steinsone had a son Johne baptised at St. Ninians's on December 5, 1661. This John would have been about 21 in February 1683, when Helen Stevenson's first son, another John, was christened. And Falkirk parish, where Helen's kids were all born, seems to be less than 10 miles from St. Ninians.

While we are here, I think Margaret Steinson might have been a widow with a couple of small children when she married John Cowburgh. There was a Margaret Steinson in nearby Fintry parish who had had her twin sons by William Din baptised in April 1651. If William had died when his boys were very young, his wife could easily have been remarried by November of 1654 when Issobell Cowburgh was christened.

8. I still don't know who were the parents of the John Coubrough of Campsie that married Jonet Buchanan ⁽⁷⁾ in about 1703. I had thought that he might be Helen Stevenson's son, who was christened in April 1684. But the Strathblane monument says he was born in 1660. This gave me the idea that he might be Helen Stevenson's husband, rather than her son. If Helen had died sometime after her daughter Margaret was born in 1689, her husband could have been re-married by 1704 when Jonet Buchanan's first child was born. A couple of sticky points, though: Jonet Buchanan's first son was called John, which might not have happened if Helen's son by that name was still alive. And John and Helen lived in Falkirk parish, but Jonet Buchanan's kids were all born in Campsie parish. I'll just have to keep looking, I guess.

9. We have established a fairly large tree with the descendants of Malcolm Coubrough and Jean Buchanan, but we have still not identified Malcolm's parents. Thanks to James Coubrough of Drymen, Scotland, though, we have found Jean Buchanan's parents. Jean, born 1775, in Drymen parish, was the fourth of six children of John Buchanan and Mary McKean. They were apparently quite well off as John and Mary had signed a "post-nuptial contract of marriage." One of Jean's brothers went to the West Indies and lived there until his death. Jean's sister Grizel married a minister, but I don't know if they had any children.

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Reunion News

Disappointed that you missed the first-ever International Coubrough/Cowbrough reunion last summer? Don't despair! Geoff and Donna Coubrough, of Katikati, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand are busy organising the second International Reunion, to be held in Katikati, April 19 & 20, 2003 (Easter weekend). You can e-mail Geoff and Donna directly at coubs@ihug.co.nz or give me a call. (Details will be on my web site soon.)

Here are some of the things I am working on. If you know the answer, please don't keep it to yourself. The rest of us would dearly love to know too.

1. We know that Grampa Jim's mother, Jean Allan, died sometime between 1851 and 1865, probably in either Barrhead or Thornliebank. She could not have been more than 55 years old, and possibly as young as 41. But exactly when, and of what cause?

2. Matt Coubrough and Jean Allan had 10 children, eight of whom seem to have survived childhood. We know what happened to Jim (m. A. MacD.); Robert (m. A. Morton); Jane (m. J. Campbell); and Matthew Gibb (m. M. Dowall). But what happened to Ann, William, and Margaret?

3. When I first discovered the family of James Cowburgh and Jean Muir, I wondered at the huge gap between Robert and Matt. The first five children are all only a couple of years apart: James, 1785; Malcolm, 1787; John, 1789; William, 1791; Robert, 1795. There is a ten-year space before the last three appear all close together again: Matt, 1805; Barbara, 1808; and William, 1810. Was James away somewhere? Were they separated for some other reason? Were there other children in between? Five years and much study later, I am no closer to an answer. Any ideas?

4. Still looking for space alien Annie's family. I have been told that Grampa Matt's "mother was from the Highlands and his father was from the Lowlands." I have also heard "His mother was from the Lowlands and his father was from the Highlands." Can anybody be more specific?

5. If the gap between James Cowburgh and Jean Muir's children is puzzling, the identity of his parents is a positive mystery. There is the possibility that James was the son of Malcolm Coubrough and Margaret Waters. They had a son named James christened in Campsie parish in September 1752, who would have been the right age at the right place at the right time. There is, however, the small matter of Jean Muir's first son, who should have been called Malcolm if that was his paternal grandfather's name. On the other hand, Jean's father was called James, so perhaps that is the answer. I haven't given up yet, though. I'm still looking.

6. Still looking for any information a bout Grampa Matt's sister, Barbara, who lived somewhere in the US, possibly in Minnesota. We had previously thought that she had two daughters named Stella and Hazel. It turns out that Estella and Hazel really existed, but they were the daughters of Simon Thomson Brown and Mary Beattie. (Simon was Grandma Liz's baby brother.) If Barbara's daughters were not called Estella and Hazel, what were their names? Did she even have kids?

7. Grampa Jim was a sailor on the lake boats of Lake Huron. Does anybody know what he did? Was he an officer or an ordinary seaman? Any ideas about what ships he might have sailed on?

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Editor's corner

Late last year, I had to move my web site to a new server. In the process, all of the family tree files were lost and the site was a mess. It has finally been updated with new trees, a new index and a new search feature. Now you can search for any word in the site, including the newsletters. I hope to get some more pictures up soon. Good or bad, let me know what you think.

e-mail: myrna@coubrough.com

1. One of Matt's sons would move to Canada and farm in Saskatchewan before the First World War. Back to text

2. Another possibility is that Joseph Gibb was really the child's father. He and his cousin Jane (m. James Campbell) were the right age at the right time to have been little Matt's parents. It was not uncommon for illegitimate children to have their mother's surname as their own, and their father's surname as a middle name. Back to text

3. Australia New Zealand Army Corps. Back to text

4. Something like baking powder biscuits, baked hard like rocks to prevent decay. Also known as "hard tack." Back to text

5. A sort of Ontario Who's Who that published biographical sketches of people who could afford to pay for such frivolities. Back to text

6. Married Helen Stevenson in about 1682. Back to text

7. The folks at the start of the Strathblane Calico Factory people. Back to text