Happy Spring Everyone! My humble apologies for being so slow with this edition of the Coubrough Times. There have been amazing discoveries in the Coubrough line, and lots of gossip about the other branches. We have details of the Third International Coubrough Reunion, as well as more about Grampa Matt’s baby sister, Barbara, and her family. So pour yourself a cup of tea, and come sit in the sunshine while we have a visit.

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Barbara & Aden Laflin

Last time I told you that, not only had I finally last found the resting place of Barbara Coubrough, youngest of Jim and Annie’s four children, but that her middle name had been Allan, not Ann, as previously thought. I had also found the names of two men who might have been her sons, so I ordered both death certificates. When they arrived, I found that only one of the men, James Franklin, was, in fact, the son of Barbara Coubrough, but the record held an even bigger surprise: the name of James Franklin’s father! We have known for some time that the surname of Barbara Allan Coubrough’s husband was Laughlin, or something similar. I have long considered that he must have been one of the sons of the Laughlin family from Dawn Township. I was more than a little surprised to find that “Mr. Barbara”, one Aden Laflin, was the son of an old Vermont family and appears never to have lived in Canada.

Once I knew his name, it was a simple matter to track him through the US Federal census. What I found, though, raised even more questions than it answered.

According to the 1 June 1850 US census, Aden, aged 9, was the second of five children of Franklin and Mary Laflin: George, born abt 1837, Aden, abt 1841, Rosamond, abt 1844, Benjamin, abt 1847, and Adelphia, abt 1848. In the 1850 US census, Franklin was said to be 40 years old and his wife, Mary, to have been 32. The whole family had been born in Vermont, where they were living at the time of the 1850 census. By the time of the 1 June 1860 census, Franklin and Mary had added four more children to their family: Quincy A, born about 1850, Ready G, abt 1853, and Clarissa, abt 1859. The younger boys had both been born in Vermont, but baby Clarissa had been born in Minnesota, as Franklin and Mary had moved to Dayton Township, Hennepin county, Minnesota, in 1856. Franklin and his sons were all farmers, so probably they had outgrown their farm in Vermont and moved west to find more land. The Laflins had been in the US for a long time. There were two or three Laflins in the first US census, in 1790, in the area where Aden’s family was from. Before 1850, the census recorded the names of only the heads of households. While it’s hard to say how long Franklin’s line had been in the US, the small number would indicate that they were either immigrants or the sons of an immigrant.

Aden and his brother George were both in the Union Army during the US Civil War: George in Company D of the 1^st Minnesota Infantry and, later, the 1^st Minnesota Heavy Artillery, and Aden in Company H of the 4^th Minnesota Infantry. When Aden signed up at Fort Snelling on May 19^th, 1861, he was about 20 years old; Barbara was three weeks. George and Aden both came home after the war. George had left the Artillery as a sergeant, though I’m not sure of his date of discharge. When Aden was released on May 5, 1864, he was still a private, but this was normal for the time and indicates no wrong-doing on his part. He must have had an angel on his shoulder, though, as he survived several battles whose casualties totalled thousands on both sides.

By the time of the 1 June 1870 US census, Aden was back home in Dayton Township. Sometime after the war, he had acquired himself a wife named Fanny, who was the same age as he was (29), and a daughter named Emma, age 2. The census also listed a William Hewes, age 9, in Aden and Fanny’s house. Before 1880, the census didn’t list the relationships of people in the household, so it isn’t clear exactly who William was. If Fanny was a widow, he could have been her son, or he might have been a nephew, a cousin or just a stray orphan.

I had a hard time finding Aden in the 1880 US census. When I finally found him under the name “Lafalin,” he had been widowed, and he and his daughter Emma had moved back to his parents’ home. His Fanny had obviously passed on sometime between the censuses on 1 June 1870 and 1 June 1880, possibly quite soon after the 1870 census. Since they seem to have had only the one child, it seems likely that Fanny died when the girl Emma was quite young. Emma was a half-sister to Barbara’s children, but no relation to Jim and Annie’s other grandchildren.

We know that, as of the spring of 1881, when the Canadian census took place, Barbara was still at home in Ontario. We also know that her first son was born in April 1887, so it’s probably safe to say that she and Aden were married sometime in between, probably around 1885 or 1886. Having said that, more questions immediately arise: What possessed our Barbara to marry a man old enough to be her father? A man whose daughter by his first wife was only about 8 years younger than Barbara, to boot? And where did she meet him? Was she in Minnesota for some reason? And what reason? Was he in Dawn Township? Were they both somewhere else? I have not been able to find an Ontario marriage record for Barbara, so they were perhaps married in Minnesota. Did she marry someone her family thought unsuitable? Or was it just because she was so far away that no one seemed to know anything about her family?

Regardless of how they met, or where they were married, Aden and Barbara had three children: Clifford Aden, April 1887; James Franklin, 25 February 1889, and Gertrude A., May 1892. I haven’t yet found anything about Gertrude, but I did find a bit more about her brothers. In about 1920, James married a woman named Margaret, and they had a daughter, Barbara Luella, who was born in about 1921. They, too, seem to have had only the one child. She married a Willard Scherber, in about 1940, and they had five children.

James Franklin died February 9, 1969, just a couple of weeks shy of his 80^th birthday. I don’t know when Margaret died, but it must have been before her husband, since his death certificate said he was a widower.

Clifford was only about 35 when he died in July 1921. I don’t know of what cause, nor whether he had a wife or children. He lived at the YMCA in St. Paul in 1915, when he registered his mother’s death, and seems to have been still there at the time of his own death. It doesn’t seem a likely place for a wife and family.

Quite a while ago, I talked about a mysterious picture, taken in Minneapolis. It was inscribed “Dad’s sister, Barbara Lochland,” and signed “Clifford A. Lochland. Who was the Clifford who signed the picture? Who was his father? Did James Franklin have an as-yet-undiscovered son named Clifford? Did James’s brother have a wife and a couple of kids after all? Did our Barbara have a daughter she named after herself, and whom we haven’t found? Or was the picture really Annie Macdonald’s daughter? If anybody can even guess at the answer to any of these questions, don’t be shy. Any clues for new directions to search will be appreciated.

Aden had been a farmer nearly all his life, with a short detour for a nasty war. Barbara had, of course, been raised on a backwoods farm. She would have been no stranger to the hard work required on any farm. An advantage of marrying a well-established farmer might have been that he could possibly afford things like a water pump in the kitchen and other modern conveniences. Someone once told me that Barbara had come to Saskatchewan for a visit a couple of times, but I haven’t been able to verify this. My source also said that Barbara and her family lived in the country, and that, from her kitchen window, Barbara could see the cemetery where her husband was buried. In light of my recent discoveries, possibly Barbara was confused with someone else. Aden Laflin died on September 27, 1915. Barbara followed three days later, likely not having taken many trips or gazed out many windows in the mean time.

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Annie Macdonald

Some time ago, I reported that our Annie might have actually had a mother and a family, but that I wasn’t sure exactly who they were. Well, I’m still not sure, but there are a few more clues.

A couple of years ago, I had an e-mail from Pat O’Brien, a descendant of Coll Macdonald. I have long believed that Coll was Annie’s brother, but had little proof. While Coll was the one who had originally bought the land where Jim and Annie lived, and he held the mortgage until the farm was paid off, there wasn’t much else to go on except that Annie’s mother seemed to have the same name as Coll’s mother, and that and Annie and Jim are buried in the same cemetery as Coll and his parents.

At about the same time as I had found Jim and Annie in the Dawn Township census of 1861, I also found a couple named Neil and Flora Macdonald. Next door to Neil and Flora was listed an Archibald Macdonald, widower, aged 40, who had died in 1860⁽¹⁾. Also living with Neil and Flora at the time were two little girls named Isabella (8 years) and Flora (aged 4), who I assumed to be Archie’s children, as none of the other young adults appeared to be married. Neil had bought his farm in July 1853, and the girl Isabella had been born the same year in Canada West. Archie himself had been born in Scotland, as had everyone else in the family, except little Flora, so he most likely brought his wife with him, rather than having met and married her in Dawn Township.

In 1855, when he was about 70Neil sold his whole farm to Coll, who proceeded to divide it up among himself and his brothers. In January 1858, when Coll bought the land where Jim and Annie were to live the rest of their lives, it was Coll’s brother William who co-signed the deed. The title was transferred to Annie’s name in March of the same year. Annie’s third child, Mary Ann (aka Minnie), was born in Dawn Township in May 1858.

My assumption of Coll and Annie’s relationship was largely based on circumstantial evidence: Coll’s land dealings with both Neil and Annie; the names of Coll’s and Annie’s daughters; the proximity of all their graves, and the fact that Ronald Macdonald, Annie’s brother, fit the name and age of a young man in Neil & Flora’s home in 1861. I had no real proof, but even assuming that Neil and Flora were Annie’s parents, there were still unanswered questions.

We knew they had probably stopped off somewhere for some time between when they left Scotland and when they landed in Dawn Township, but we didn’t know where. In the 1901 census, Annie’s brother Ronald was living with Matt and Liz. He said that he had come to Canada in 1834, but they clearly hadn’t been in Dawn Township all that time, so where were they? Where did they come from in Scotland? And why? What was the maiden name of Neil’s wife? When were they married, and where? How many kids were there all together? Did they all come to Dawn Township, or did some stay in Scotland and/or wherever they had stopped off along the way?

We have known for a couple of years that Jim and Annie were married in Halifax, and that their second child, Flora Jane, was born there in 1856. What we didn’t (and still don’t) know is when, where or how she met Jim, who appears to have still been in the army when she married him. What she was doing there in the first place? Was she visiting someone? Was she looking for work? Was she actually working in Halifax? She was at least five and probably seven years older than Jim. Was she a widow when she met him?

Being there with a previous husband would go a long way to explaining why she was in Halifax in the first place. She seems to have had the same surname as her parents, but there were a lot of MacDonalds in Nova Scotia, so she could have married an unrelated man with the same name. She doesn’t seem to have had any surviving children from before Jim, but again, this doesn’t mean anything. A first husband could have died too soon, or an infant might not have survived. What it all adds up to is that we still have no idea why she was in Halifax, or why she was married to a man so much younger than herself, or how she found herself a soldier.

Enter, once again, Pat O’Brien. Late last fall, she wrote to say she had discovered that Coll had had a sister named Flora. She had known that Coll’s family had been in Cape Breton for some years before coming to what is now Ontario⁽²⁾, but she hadn’t known about this sister. Young Flora had not come west with the rest of her family, having married a Norman McLean sometime before 1852, when her first known son, Archibald, was born. She and Norman had at least two other children: Margaret, born about 1860, and John Archibald, born about 1862. These three were living at home with their parents in the 1881 census, but there could have been others in the long space between Archie and Margaret. According to Pat, young Flora’s family lived at Kennington Cove, later moving to the village of Gabarus⁽³⁾, but that’s about all we know of them for now.

According to Pat, Neil and Flora had another son, Murdoch, who apparently stayed in Scotland when his family left. If his parents did indeed go to Cape Breton in 1834, he would have been not more than 16 or 17, but probably old enough to stay behind and make his own way. He is said to have been a teacher, but we don’t know anything else about him yet.

Pat also recently subscribed to Ancestry.com’s on-line family tree, One-World. She searched for her Coll Macdonald, and hit pay-dirt. Someone had submitted a family tree which almost exactly matched the information we had:

Neil MacDonald, b. 1785, Scotland married in 1818 to Flora MacLean b. 1788, Scotland, both d. 1864, Dawn Township.

Children of Neil and Flora (all born in Scotland):

Archy, born 1820; Annie, 1824; Coll, 1826; Ronald, 28 Feb 1828, William, 1829, and Donald, born 1830 in Taigh Ghearraidn, North Uist, Scotland

There were also names given for Flora’s parents, and for three generations of Neil’s ancestors.

All in one fell swoop, Annie had a family, her mother had a last name, and we had a place of origin in Scotland. It seemed too good to be true...and it was. A few days later, Pat wrote to say she had contacted the submitter of the family tree she had found. The woman replied that she had no Neil of any sort married to any Flora, and the only Neil Macdonald she had was born 50 years before ours. The families must somehow have got crossed in the database. But all is not lost.

Someone must have submitted the family tree Pat found; all we have to do is find them. Even if we don’t, we are probably on the right track: It seems improbable that someone we don’t know is completely wrong in exactly the same direction as us. Neil and Flora were the ones who didn’t match the other person’s tree, so it is probably safe to assume they are the start of the mismatch. If so, Flora’s surname is probably correct, and we have at least one new clue.

It is common, even today, for immigrants to settle where they have family or friends nearby. Nineteenth-century Scots were no different. Often, people from a whole village or district would travel together and all settle in the same place when they arrived at their new homes. It was especially true of Highlanders who went to Cape Breton after being forced off their ancestral lands (replaced by sheep, who were much more profitable). From what I have been able to find out, most of the people who left North Uist for Cape Breton, especially Protestants, settled in the Gabarus and Mira valley areas; conversely, most of the people who settled around Gabarus and the Mira river valley were from North Uist.

Since at least two of Neil and Flora’s children (Coll and Donald) seem to have been born in North Uist, and their daughter Flora stayed in the Gabarus area, it seems likely that Neil and Flora had originally come from North Uist and had probably lived around Gabarus somewhere. This may be further supported by the surname of young Flora’s husband. If the family was indeed from North Uist, and others from that parish settled near Flora and Neil, odds are good that young Flora’s Norman McLean was from North Uist as well. There were plenty of McLeans on North Uist, giving equally good odds that Mrs. Neil Macdonald had been born a McLean. I have begun searches in the parish of North Uist, and in the Gabarus, Cape Breton area. Not much progress so far, but our Annie may not be a space alien after all.

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Billy & Flora Atwell

We all know that Billy and Flora Jane had nine children, three of whom did not survive infancy. Billy was a stationary engineer, who ran a sawmill from at least 1886 on. His partners were his wife’s cousin, Neil Macdonald⁽⁴⁾, and Lachlan MacNeil, who was married to Grandma Liz’s sister Maggie Brown. Sometime between 1904 and 1906, Billy took his four oldest sons west to Saskatchewan, where they found a homestead at Elrose. Three years later, his wife sold up everything they had left in Dawn Township, including Jim and Annie’s farm, which Jenny had inherited at her mother’s death. Her sister-in-law, Liz Brown Coubrough, had done the same. Jenny’s second son, Sherm, who would then have been about 21, was appointed to go back east to collect his mother and sisters, so in April 1909⁽⁵⁾, they took the train west and never looked back. But what happened to Billy and Jenny after they got to Elrose? What became of their children?

Annie, their first tiny baby girl, named for her mother’s mother, was born June 16, 1880. She lived only 22 days before they lost the poor little thing to whooping cough. Baby Annie’s small white marble marker was the first grave I found when I began hunting for Coubroughs in Dawn Township. I thought it very sad that no one seemed to know that she had ever existed. I always bring flowers for her and her sister when I go there.

Eliza Jane, born August 27, 1881, fared much better. By the time her mother moved west, Eliza Jane, known as Lizzie (later Elizabeth), had grown up to be a millner, and moved to Hamilton, Ontario. In 1908, she married Percy Robertson, son of Charles Robertson and Emma Mabee. Lizzie and James soon moved to Detroit, Michigan, where their twins Charles and Dorothy were born in 1910. James Robertson died in 1963, but I don’t know what became of Lizzie or their children.

Wilbert James, born November 9, 1883, was known as Bert. In 1908, he was working in Moose Jaw, as a machinist. After the family farm was sold in the 1920s, Bert went back to work as a machinist in various mines. He lived until the late 1960s, but I could find no indication of his having a wife or children.

Barbara Ann, born March 29, 1886, lived only a little more than two months before she too was taken away by whooping cough, on June 3, 1886. She is buried beside her sister in Dawn Twp’s Gould cemetery, but her marker, like many others in this little rural graveyard, has been destroyed by vandals.

John Sherman, born May 8, 1887, was known as “Sherm”. He married Lottie Rathwell in about 1914, and they had two children: Kenneth, b 1915, and Marilyn. Sherm and Lottie ran the Elrose Hotel from the mid-1930s to the mid-1940s, selling it just before the end of the war. After that, they went to Saskatoon for a short time before moving to Calgary, where they owned a small grocery store. In the spring of 1946, they sold that too, and moved to Vancouver. Sherm died there in 1955. Lottie stayed in their home until 1971, when she moved to Cloverdale, B.C.. She died there in 1980.

After high school, Marilyn was a secretary for B.C. Electric until she married a barber named Bill Fruno, in 1954. They had five children: Cheryl, Brian, Karen, Ricky, and Greg. In the 1980s, Cheryl was a professional jockey.

Marilyn’s brother Ken joined the RCAF in 1941. He was shot down over Germany in 1942, and spent the rest of the war in a prison camp. In 1946, after training as an electrician, he married Pat Walker, whose father was a manager with the Royal Bank of Canada. They moved to Langley, B.C., where Ken had found a job. He later operated his own heating and electrical business there. They moved to Cloverdale in 1980, and Ken died there in July 1984.

Orman Lester, born December 11, 1890, had been only about 15⁽⁶⁾ years old when he went to Saskatchewan with his father. There is a story that, as the youngest of the five men, he was appointed laundry man. He sorted the laundry into three piles, then decided which ones weren’t really all that dirty, and which ones were too old and worn out to bother with. The last pile–the ones that had to be washed–was pretty small, which was no doubt just the way he liked it.

In 1908, he joined his brother Bert in Moose Jaw, where Orm went to work on the railroad. Moving back to Elrose some time later, he opened a pool hall there in 1917, and ran it for quite a few years. He married Irene Torrance, and they had one daughter, Lorna, who eventually married Howard Smith. Lorna and Howard raised three children in Elrose: Ronald, Sandra, and Wendy. Orm ran a water wagon for quite a few years, too, selling drinking water to Elrose residents for 5¢ a pail (later 10¢). Orman died in Elrose, in 1969, and his wife in 1971.

Rhoda Ann was born April 5, 1892. Soon after she moved west, she went to work as a clerk in a Moose Jaw dry goods store for a year or two. In about 1909 or 1910, she and her brothers Orm and Bert all returned to the farm at Elrose. In 1911, she married George Bigelow. They had one daughter, Doris. In 1912, George opened a pool hall in Elrose. They later moved to Victoria, B.C., where daughter Doris married Lee Rutley. Lee and Doris had one daughter, Maralee, who was a professional figure skater and toured Europe with the “European Holiday on Ice” company. Doris still lives in Vancouver.

Mathew Delbert, born January 2, 1895, doesn’t seem to have lived past his third birthday. I found a birth certificate for him, but nothing else. I don’t know exactly what happened to him, but no one I have talked to ever heard of this little boy. He was not with the rest of his family in a picture taken about 1898, and he wasn’t listed with the rest of his family in the 1901 census. He is most likely in the Gould cemetery with his sisters, but thanks to the vandals, any marker he might have had is long gone.

Clifford Edward, born July 14, 1897, was the youngest of Billy and Flora’s children. After a stint in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War, Clifford moved to Detroit, where he met and married a girl named Libby. They had no children.

According to the Elrose history book Prairie to Wheatfields (1985), in 1917 the Atwell Brothers ran a machine shop, which was located a mile east of Elrose, most likely on the home farm. Possibly it was Bert, an experienced machinist and mechanic, who was in charge of the operation. In the same year, Orman started a feed chopping mill. He must have been a busy guy, running a feed mill, a pool hall and a water wagon.

In the years when they were all still in Elrose, the Atwells had a dance band. Sherm played the trombone, Orm and Bert, the trumpet and violin, and Rhoda the piano. When Rhoda moved to B.C., Sherm’s wife Lottie took over the piano. They played for dances at the community hall and the local school. They charged “Gents” 75¢ each; ladies were admitted free. Also according to the Elrose history book, the Atwell Brothers had opened a restaurant in 1912. By the 1920s, it had become the City Café, operated by a Charlie Chung. Sherm later ran a hotel, so he may have been behind the restaurant.

Flora died in 1916⁽⁷⁾, and poor Billy was alone until his own death in 1927. The Elrose homestead was sold soon after. Some of these cousins of ours still live in the Elrose area.

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Other branches

1. Walter Davidson Coubrough, second son of John Coubrough & Mary Binnie Davidson, married Mary Milray, daughter of John Milray & Maryannie Stanhope, on August 9, 1881. Walter and Mary were married in Kircudbright, Scotland, though the spring of 1901 found them in England.

Walter and Mary were previously thought to have had eight children, including a set of twins, Walter Rennie, and Walterina, born July 3, 1892. It turns out that someone had mucked up when Walter had reported the birth to the registrar, and there was really only one child. Walter Coubrough had registered a baby boy named Walter Rennie in 1892, but I recently discovered an affidavit sworn by the child’s mother, in 1894, and witnessed by the sheriff. I have no idea what prompted Mary Milray to make the correction, but according to the affidavit, not only was the child not named Walter Rennie, she was actually a girl, with the unlikely name of Walterina.

In the 19^th century, girls were named after their fathers by the addition of a feminine ending⁽⁸⁾ to the father’s name, either to identify the father (often used by single mothers), or when not enough sons were born to use up all the required male names. Mary and Walter’s first child was a boy they called John after both their fathers. When John was followed by five sisters (Mary, Ann, Jessie, and Margaret), Walter must have despaired of a son to carry his own name. Walterina was followed by two more sisters, Elizabeth, and Helen. Had he not foisted it on his a daughter, Walter might never have had a namesake.

2. Malcolm Coubrough, second son of James Coubrough and Jean Muir, married Agnes Mackinnon on June 17, 1807, in Eastwood parish. We have long known that the James Coubrough who married Catherine MacFarlan was the eldest son of Agnes and Malcolm, and a couple of years ago we figured out that the Robert who married Margaret Wilson was also Agnes Mackinnon’s son. It appeared that there were only the two of them, an unexplained 12 years apart. Not so. I don’t know the reason why their births weren’t in the parish register, but over the past couple of years, three more children have surfaced.

A while back, we figured out that the Barbara Coubrough who had married Alexander Hutcheson was the daughter of Malcolm and Agnes, and that Mary Cameron’s husband, Malcolm Coubrough, was Barbara’s younger brother. It took a while to puzzle these out because the death certificates for both Barbara and the younger Malcolm gave the mother’s name as Ann McKinnon, rather than Agnes, as I had recorded the elder Malcolm’s wife. I was mystified by this for some time, until I found out that Agnes and Ann were variations on a theme, and often referred to the same person. Jean Muir’s son Malcolm now had four children, but as Barbara and Malcolm were both younger than Robert, there was still that big gap between him and James. About six months ago, the space between the first two boys shrank a bit.

On June 2, 1865, John Bennett, printfield worker, had the sad duty of reporting his wife’s death to the registrar at Pollokshaws. John’s wife, who had died on June 1^st, at 1:30 in the afternoon, had been Margaret Coubrough, daughter of Ann McKinning and Malcolm Coubrough, both deceased. Despite the spelling of the mother’s name, there was only one family she could have belonged to, and there was no doubt that she was Jean Muir’s granddaughter. Margaret was 54, which meant she had been born about 1815—smack in the middle of the space between James and Robert.

Beyond their names and marriage date, we know very little about Agnes and Malcolm. They seem to have raised their family in Eastwood parish, where Malcolm had come as a small boy with his family, in about 1790. The village of Thornliebank was a one-industry town whose sole reason for existing was to support the calico mills built there in 1789. Likely Malcolm was employed at the mill, either as a textile worker, like his brothers, or as a tradesman of some sort, perhaps a carpenter like his father. Presumably Malcolm was still alive about 1830, when his namesake son was born, but Robert’s 1855 death certificate listed his father as deceased. Agnes was “Mrs. Coubrough” in the 1851 census, where she was said to be living with her daughter Barbara. Robert’s death certificate gives his mother’s name, but doesn’t say she was deceased. Margaret Bennett’s 1869 death certificate gave both her parents as deceased, so it is probably safe to say that Agnes had passed on sometime in between Robert’s death and Margaret’s.

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3. The Ellrig Coubroughs are a far-flung branch of the tribe. Today, most are middle-class folks who work for their daily bread. Some of their ancestors seem to have been quite well off, but some later generations may have fallen on hard times, or the fortunes were just spread thin by the numbers of descendants.

Henry Coubrough was born in the early spring of 1774, twelfth of James Cowbrough and Elizabeth Boyd’s thirteen children. In 1801, he married Wilhelmina Cowbrough, daughter of cousin William Cowbrough, and his wife, Jean Auld. (Henry’s father was the younger brother of William’s father, which accounts for the whole generation difference in age.) Henry (1774) and Wilhelmina went on to have thirteen children of their own, of whom at least five never saw their third birthdays. Of the ones who grew up, only Henry (1814) and his elder brother William seem to have left Scotland, though some of baby Thomas’s children went to Uruguay.

Little is known of Henry and Wilhelmina’s son William except that he was a 25-year-old clerk who went to Australia in 1833. Possibly he just went looking for work, or, since he was a clerk, perhaps he went as an agent for one of the shipping interests connected with the Cowbroughs. His cousin James Boyd Coubro’ made at least two voyages to Australia, so possibly one of the Cowbrough ships made a regular run there. William never married and had no children. He died in Maldon, Victoria, Australia, in 1869, at the age of 61.

William’s brother Henry (1814) married Elizabeth Wylie⁽⁹⁾ at Tulliallan, Perth, Scotland, in August 1846. They must have moved to Liverpool, England, soon after, as their only child, another Henry, was born in that city in about November 1848. Poor Elizabeth died not long after that, on January 30, 1849.

Henry (1814) was some sort of merchant in Liverpool. He most likely held shares in one or more ships and may have been connected to the ships’ chandlers business that was partly owned by Henry’s Uncle William⁽¹⁰⁾. When 1814 Henry’s youngest son, William Ellrig Coubrough, was married, he gave his father’s occupation as “ship owner.” Young William gave his own occupation as green grocer, so perhaps his father had been in this line as well.

In 1858, Henry (1814) married Ellen Smith, a woman about 10 years younger than himself. Henry and Ellen had two more sons: Andrew Smith and William Ellrig. Papa Henry himself remained in England, but his sons had adventuring in their blood. Young Henry (1848) was in San Francisco, California, before 1878, when he married Marie Rachel Shellard there. They had three sons: Henry, Leslie, and Walter.

Henry (1848) and Marie were in were in Tacoma, Washington in 1910⁽¹¹⁾. The elder Henry, 71, was a widower in 1920; Henry, Jr., 39, was still single, and still at home. He married later that year to Christina Seuss, and they had one daughter, Evelyn Marie.

In 1917, Walter married a woman named Julia Zacharias, but I don’t know if they had any children. Walter died April 2, 1974, aged about 88.

Leslie was also in Tacoma by 1930. He had been married and had at least one daughter, Evelyn, born about 1926. In 1930, Leslie, aged 44, was a widower, and he and Evelyn were boarders in the home of Ina Drake, age 60. Leslie was a machinist in a smelter, so possibly Mrs. Drake was also the babysitter for 3-year-old Evelyn.

An L.L. Coubrough was club champion of the Tacoma Chess Club in 1954. Leslie died in Seattle in 1974, so he was alive and well in 1954, but I don’t know if he was the chess guy, or if it was someone else. He may have, at some point, married a woman named Jewell, but I’m not certain.

Andrew wasn’t far behind his brother in moving to “America⁽¹²⁾.” In about 1884, Andrew married Mary Simpson. By 1885, they were settled in Lisgar (near Stonewall), Manitoba, where all of their six children were born, but it isn’t clear whether they were married in England or in Canada.

I am not sure when Ellen died, but in the 1891 census, she was paying a visit to her son Andrew’s family at Stonewall. When Henry died on October 15, 1885, he seems to have left her fairly well-fixed. The probate record shows his estate valued at £20,915, which, in today’s money, would be roughly £1.44 million, or 3.5 million Canadian dollars.

Henry (1814) and Ellen’s younger son, William Ellrig Coubrough, of 25 Victoria Street, Liverpool, Fruit Merchant, was the executor. I don’t know how much his share of his father’s estate came to, but when William himself moved on to the next world in 1922, he left an estate valued at only £130 (worth a paltry £4338, or about $9000 today). I don’t think he married or had any children, since his brother Andrew was the executor of his estate.

4. Wilhelmina’s brother-in- law William (b 1772) was the only other one of her husband’s siblings to leave Scotland. He married Catherine Wedderburn, daughter of Agnes Neil and John Wedderburn, in Dundee, on May 6, 1803. I don’t know how he got into the shipping business, but William eventually became the captain of his own ship. All of his six children were born in Dundee, a seaport with connections to the both the European and Atlantic trade markets. The family may also have later lived at both Greenock, one of the sea ports associated with Glasgow, and Liverpool, England, but I am not certain of these.

Catherine and William’s son James Boyd Coubrough, also became a sea captain. Somewhere along the way, James’ surname was truncated to Coubro’. The origin of this spelling is unclear, though it is thought to have been a clerk’s abbreviation that stuck for some reason. At any rate, the short form does not appear before the family left Scotland, and James Boyd’s line is the only one known to have used it. His brothers and sisters used the traditional spelling, so the short version most likely originated with James Boyd. While some of his descendants have returned to the more traditional spelling, some (fewer than a dozen) proudly continue to use the contraction.

As for Catherine Wedderburn’s husband, William, an entry in James Boyd’s ship’s log noted that he had returned from a voyage of his own, expecting to meet his father in port. Tragically, William had set sail for the Sugar Islands in the early spring of 1829 (shortly after James had left). His ship was never heard from again, presumed lost at sea with all hands.

5. One of the ships captained by James Boyd Coubro’ was the Herald. According to the Lloyd’s Register, she was “ship rigged,” 801 tons, old measurement⁽¹³⁾ and had been sheathed in felt and yellow metal in 1841. For the 1841 voyage to Sydney, Australia, she was registered at Glasgow, but the Lloyd’s survey had been done at Clyde. The registered owner was “Anderson,” whoever he was. Ship’s captain’s often had shares in the ship, its cargo, or both, ensuring that they would do their best to get both ship and cargo where they were supposed to go and back again, so perhaps James or someone in his family owned a share of the Herald.

In the first half of the 19^th-century, New Brunswick had thousands of acres of primeval forest—a perfect home for a thriving shipbuilding industry. The Herald was built there in 1840 “using Black Birch, Oak, Spruce & Hackmatac.” Perhaps she was partly built by another of the Coubrough cousins.

Early in 1828, one Mathew Lamont had taken a job as a carpenter at a New Brunswick shipyard. Later that year, he brought his wife, Sophia Wilkie, and their two sons to their new home. Sophia was the third of nine children of Thomas Wilkie and Euphaim Coubrough, who was, in turn, the third of four children of William Coubrough and Euphemia Alison. Tragically, Sophie was not equal to the New Brunswick climate, dying only months after their arrival.

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6. John Coubrough, elder brother of Walter Davidson Coubrough (item 1), married Catherine Campbell on June 7, 1877, at Stirling, Scotland–a fact we have been aware of for some time. Likewise, we knew they had six children (Margaret, Catherine, Mary, Annie, John and Janet), but not what had become of them.

A few months ago, I had an e-mail from Ian Kennedy, and, shortly after, another from Kathy Wallace. Ian, a descendant of one of Catherine Campbell’s siblings, is a long-time genealogist. Kathy’s partner, Robert Wallace, was apparently an only child, and she was trying to find out more about his family. Between us, we figured out that John Coubrough and Catherine Campbell’s second daughter, Catherine Campbell Ramsay Coubrough, born about 1880 in Falkirk, had married one John Wallace, on June 13, 1903, at Blantyre, Ayr, Scotland. They had three sons: John Coubrough, 1904; Robert Aird, 1910, and William⁽¹⁴⁾, about 1914.

In August 1930, John Coubrough Wallace married Elizabeth Macquire Howie, born 1902. They had one daughter, Catherine. John died in 1967, and Elizabeth in 1989.

William married Katherine Devlin and they had two children, yet another Catherine, and a William. William died in 1996, and Katherine in October 2000.

The middle son,Robert Aird, married Martha Burley Hutton, born 1912, on December 3, 1937, at Kilmarnock, Ayr. They also had three sons. We don’t know what happened to his brothers, but if the youngest grew up thinking he was an only child, the other two likely didn’t survive infancy. Martha Hutton died at Kilmarnock in 1970, and Robert Aird (b1914) in England, in 1993.

As for the rest of Catherine Campbell and John Coubrough’s children, we still know very little. Their oldest daughter, Margaret, had a son named John, born 1897, father unknown. Their third daughter, Mary Davidson Coubrough, married one John Stewart in Blantyre, Ayr, in 1901. The fates of the three youngest children, Annie, John, and Janet, are still a mystery.

7. Henry Cowbrough, born 1827, was the youngest of Henry (b1785) Cowbrough⁽¹⁵⁾ and Mary Wood’s 10 children. Young Henry married Jane Kirkwood in Leeds, England. According to the Ellrig genealogy, made by Henry Manuel in 1880, Jane and Henry had eight children, but so far we have only identified two. Elizabeth Jane, born about 1857, and James, about 1864, both in Dublin, Ireland, were probably the youngest. They were the only ones still at home with their widowed father in the 1871 census of the city of Leeds.

Elizabeth was gone from home by 1881. James and his father, Henry, a “wine and spirit merchant,” lived at 63 Boar Lane, Leeds, which was either the public house they owned or the house next door. (The address of the public house was later 63-64 Boar Lane, but I don’t know the effective date of this change.) The 1881 census also had a Henry Cowbrough, 30, who lived at 64 Boar Lane. He was, a “licensed victualler’s clerk” by trade. Judging by the fact that he had the same name as Jane Kirkwood’s husband and was a clerk in an establishment owned by said husband, the younger Henry was probably Jane Kirkwood’s son.

As a wine and spirit merchant, the elder Henry’s business included a brewery, whose product was almost certainly on tap at the Boar Lane public house. While Cowbrough & Co. was registered in 1896, Britain had revised its corporate laws in the mid-1890s, so I suspect that the first pint of Cowbrough’s Nourishing Ale had hit the streets by 1871, or maybe even earlier. If its ads are to be believed, Cowbrough’s Nourishing Ale cured many an invalid. (The one at left is from 1931.) In the late 1920s, Nourishing Ale sold for 2 shillings 6 pence per dozen (roughly $11 Canadian, in today’s money). It was available until the brewery was sold in 1932, and the first iteration of Cowbrough & Co. folded in 1933.

Besides their Ale, Cowbrough & Co. also sold “E.Y.O. Scotch Whisky,” no doubt equally restorative. As far as I know, Henry’s family were the only Cowbroughs in Leeds. Being cousins of the Liverpool branch, though, chances are he had shares in one or more of his cousins’ ships, or at least an interest in their cargoes. A canal links Leeds to Liverpool, so it would have been fairly easy and cheap to transport whisky from Scotland to Leeds.

Cowbrough’s Nourishing Ale bottle label. Imagine touting an alcoholic beverage today as “Invaluable to Invalids”!	Cowbrough's Nourishing Ale Ad, ca. 1931. It reads “Good for Invalids – and you too!. Although Cowbrough’s Nourishing Ale has wonderful tonic properties and is very highly recom-mended for the invalid, it is equally appreciated by the “Ale Connoisseur. Cowbrough’s Nourishing Ale Sold by all Licensed Grocers”

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8. A while ago, I told you about a Richard Coubrough who had been sentenced to life in prison for the 1971 murder of a nurse. Scotland had recently revised its laws regarding murderer, and there was a notice in the Scotsman saying Richard’s case had been reviewed to see if he had served sufficient of his sentence to be set free, which was how I found him. Even though he still claims innocence, it was decided that he should he should stay in prison.

I think this Richard was born about 1933, but I don’t know where and I don’t know who his family was. All I know about him so far is what I have from the newspaper reports of his doings, and they say nothing of his family (a fact I’m sure they appreciate!).

The article below appeared in an April 5, 2005, on-line edition of The Scotsman newspaper:

“Killer's conviction to be reviewed after more than 30 years

by John Innes

A convicted killer who strangled a mother-of-two more than 30 years ago is to have his conviction reviewed to establish if it was a miscarriage of justice, it emerged yesterday.

Richard Coubrough was jailed for life in 1971 for the murder of 37-year-old Dorothea Meechan. Her body was discovered less than a mile from her home in Renfrew earlier that year.

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission confirmed that it had referred the case to the High Court, which will treat it as a normal appeal.

During his trial at the High Court in Glasgow, the jury heard that Coubrough attacked Mrs Meechan, 37, as she crossed a narrow bridge near French Street in Renfrew. He then dumped her body and left a note beside it which read: "Mr Polis I have killed that woman in cold blood, Bible John."

The sign-off was a reference to the serial killer thought to be responsible for the deaths of three women in Glasgow in the late 1960s. Coubrough, who is in his early 70s, has always denied the murder.

In November 2003, he failed to return to Noranside open prison, near Forfar, after he was released on home leave, but he later gave himself up to police in York after spending a week on the run.

Following his escape, Forfar Sheriff Kevin Veal sentenced Coubrough to six months, to run alongside his life term. He said: "I take into account your plea of guilty and deteriorating health."

Coubrough later claimed that he had escaped in an attempt to bring attention to his case.”

9. Archibald Coubrough was a bookseller in Glasgow in the mid-1700s. I don’t know yet who this Archibald was, but it may have been his son who married Isobel Richards in 1785.

On a web site called “The Glasgow Story,” I found an article by a Joe Fisher which said:

“The earliest Glasgow public libraries took the form of commercial circulating libraries. John Smith, Trongate bookseller set up the first of these, in 1753, with 5,000 volumes and requiring an annual subscription of ten shillings. About the same time John Coubrough, High Street bookseller, opened his circulating library with 4,500 volumes loaned for "one penny per night".

In those days, the bookseller was also the publisher. While the books were usually printed by a professional printer, it was the seller who decided what would be printed and sold from his shop. Of course, he was also on the hook if the book didn’t sell, so perhaps it was not unreasonable that he would get to choose what was printed. Glasgow’s population in the 1750s was around fifty thousand (about the size of today’s Medicine Hat, Alberta). Given the advanced state of public education in Scotland, compared to the rest of Europe, a population that size would have made book selling a reasonably lucrative business.

On another web site, I came across this transcript of a book published and sold by Archibald Coubrough. I didn’t find out how much this little book⁽¹⁶⁾ sold for, but it certainly seems that public tastes in reading matter have changed somewhat over the past 250 years. The word “choss” just above the date should probably be “cross.” It likely referred to the market cross, literally a large stone cross. The public markets were held there, and it would have been a city landmark that everyone would have recognised.

Excerpt from a book published and sold by Archibald Coubrough:

“A Treatise On Justification:

Shewing The Matter, Manner, Time And Effects of It.

BY Mr. Thomas Dutton

LONDON:

Late Minister in London, and Author of the Discourse on the New Birth, and Religious Letters.

Third Edition

Glasgow

Printed by William Smith

For Archibald Coubrough, Bookseller; and sold at his Shop, above the choss.

1778.

A

DISCOURSE

UPON

JUSTIFICATION

In the justification of a sinner in the sight of God I shall consider four things, principally.

FIRST. The Matter of it. SECONDLY. The Manner of it. THIRDLY. The Time of it. And

FOURTHLY. The Effect of it, with respect to the soul. And then

FIFTHLY. In the last place I shall add something by way of Use. I shall consider,

FIRST. The Matter of justification, or the matter of that righteousness whereby a sinner is made righteous in the sight of God. And this, according to the Scriptures of truth, is the complete obedience of Jesus Christ; exclusive of all the creature's works, whether before or after its regeneration by the Spirit of God. The complete obedience of Jesus Christ to the divine Law has two branches which are commonly styled His active and passive obedience; which consist in His fulfilling all the Law's requirements, and enduring all its penalties. The righteousness which God's Law requires has two parts, viz., a negative part and a positive part. The negative part of righteousness consists in abstaining from, or the not doing of those things which the Law forbids. And the positive part of righteousness consists in the doing of those things which the Law requires. 'And sin is the transgression of the law (1 John. 3:4) in both these respects; on which account the Law's penalty becomes righteously due to every transgressor. And these two parts of the Law's righteousness, though they may be distinguished, yet not divided. For whoever wants that conformity to the Law which it requires, is likewise a transgressor of it in doing what it forbids; and whoever does what the Law forbids, wants that conformity to its precepts which the Law requires, so that they cannot be divided; but yet they may be distinguished. And the transgressor of the Law is an unrighteous person in the eye of the Law in both these respects. And answerably, it was necessary that the righteousness of Christ should consist of two parts. ...”

10. We have two new entries in the space alien list. During a recent search of the 1880 US census, I found a list for the Hahnemann Hospital, in Chicago, Illinois. Two of the people listed there were Mary Coubrough, married, whose occupation was given as “servant,” and a baby named Joseph Coubrough. The were not listed together, but since Mary’s reason for being in the hospital was given as “pregnancy,” and since Joseph appears to have been only a few days old, it may be safe to assume that they were related. There is no mention of Mary’s husband, since he wasn’t a patient. Interestingly, Mary’s place of birth was given as Canada, but the baby’s parenet were said to have both been born in Illinois. Judging by the surnames, either it was Mary’s husband who was the Coubrough, or she fibbed about being married. In any case, Mary and Joseph will probably be on the alien list for a while, as I don’t know of any other Coubroughs in Chicago at that time.

11. We have known for quite some time that Grandma Liz Brown Coubrough’s baby brother Simon had “gone to the gold fields.” He had married one Mary Elizabeth Beattie, and had two daughters: Mary Estella, and Hazel Beattie. He later went to Tacoma, Washington, where he married Josephine Johnson and where he died in 1938, but that was about it. We didn’t know when he went to Washington, how old Josephine was, when they had married, or if they had had any children. Well, that’s all changed now, thanks yet again to the census takers an their pointy pencils.

In the 1930 census, Simon, 53, and Josephine, 49, lived in their own $3,500 home at 3828 South J Street, Tacoma, Washington. Simon was a warehouseman at the Port of Tacoma, and Josephine was a “Saleslady, Department Store.” Josephine had been born in Minnesota, while Simon was said to have moved to the US in 1890. If this is the correct date, he most likely married his first wife somewhere in the US. However, since Hazel, his younger daughter by Mary Beattie, seems to have been born in Dawn Township, he must have taken his family back there at some point. The only gold fields I know of at that time would have been the Klondike, whose famous gold rush began in about 1897/8. Simon must have left Dawn again soon after Hazel was born in 1897, or even before.

I didn’t find Simon and Josephine in the 1920 census, but in 1910, Josephine Brown, 29, a “dress fitter, department store,” was in the home of her 60-year-old mother, Mary N. Johnson. Also in the house were Mary’s son Gordon Johnson, 19, a factory labourer, and Mary’s granddaughter Vera Brown, aged 6. Going by the little girl’s name, she must have been Simon’s daughter, but Simon is not listed in the household. The census asked for a marital status for every person, a column marked with a “D” in Josephine’s case. It was intended to mean “divorced” but I don’t know if this was actually the case. Simon and Josephine may have been separated at some point, but they were definitely together again in the 1930 census.

As for little Vera, born about 1904, she was probably an only child. One of the columns in the 1910 census asked “Mother to how many children,” and “How many now living.” Both questions were marked “1” for Josephine. I have not yet found anything else about Vera, but she definitely bears further searching.

Josephine herself was the second of six children of Mary and Abel Johnson. She was born about July 1880, probably in Washington. Most of the census records I have seen give her birthplace as Minnesota, but her parents were enumerated in Snohomish Township, Washington Territory, in the 1 June 1880 census, which was a month or so before Josephine was born. The 1880 census gave Mary’s birthplace as Sweden, and Abel’s as Norway; their oldest son, Charley, was said to have been born in Washington, but later censuses said either Minnesota or Sweden. Later censuses consistently gave Abel’s birthplace as Sweden.

The 1910 census said that Mary (Josephine’s mother) was the mother of five children, all of whom were still living at that time. I have only been able to find the names of four, all of whom were listed in the 1900 census: Charley, about 1878; Josephine, 1880; Casper, 1884; and Gordon, 1890. I didn’t find them 1890, but Mary was a widow in 1900, so Abel probably died when Gordon was quite young.

12. A few years ago, I found an index record of an 1848 home-stead grant to Rebecca Coubrough, in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana. There was also a census index record for a William Conbrough in the same place. I could find nothing else, but more and more records are being digitised all the time, and I hoped to find something eventually. I did.

Last winter, I discovered that William had married a Rebecca Hamilton, on October 25, 1821, in St. Mary parish, Louisiana. After that, nothing more. Then, about a month ago, I found the 1830 US census for St Mary Parish.

In 1830, William was “over 30 and under 40.” That census only listed the names of the heads of households, but it did list the sex and ages of the other persons in the household. William's household also contained one female "Of thirty and under forty," which was most likely his wife, Rebecca Hamilton, but there was also a girl "over ten and under fifteen." The census didn't give relationships, so it is impossible to tell if this girl was a daughter, sister, niece, cousin or a servant. If she was a daughter, she should have been born sometime between 1821, when her parents were married, and the census date of 1830, but I haven’t been able to find any Coubrough girls born in Louisiana at that time.

I couldn't find either William or Rebecca in the 1840 census, but the US Bureau of Land Management, in charge of homestead grants after 1820, had a grant dated June 1, 1848, to a Rebecca Coubrough. I couldn't find one in her husband's name, so perhaps he was already gone by then.

If William was between 30 & 40 in 1830, he must have been born between 1790 & 1800. The 1830 census didn't list places of birth, but I assume William was born in Scotland, though this is not necessarily so. He would have been about the right age to have been the son of John and Jean Coubrough: They had a William born in 1793 who would have been old enough to have married in 1821, and I have no record of what happened to him.

Rebecca’s land grant named her as Rebecca Coubrough of Allakapas, Louisiana, and the land office as being in Opelousas. She was granted the lots numbered one and two of section fifteen and numbered three and four of section ten, in township fourteen, south of Range 10 East, a total of one hundred and sixty-six and seventeen-one hundredths of an acre.

Two years later, Rebecca was living in the home of a Mr. Blyce Elliott. The 1850 census didn’t list family relationships, but Rebecca was one of only two people in the household whose surname was not Elliot, and she was the only adult female. Mr. Elliot seems to have been a widower with several young children, and there is no sign of Rebecca’s husband, so probably she was also widowed by then. Possibly she was a relative of Mr. Elliott’s deceased wife, and she lived there to help care for his children.

Reunion News

The 2005 reunion is a go. It will be held August 8 – 10, 2005, at the Lesser Albert Hall, in the city of Stirling, Scotland. The cost is £50 per person, for the full three days, or £25, per person, per day, if you wish to only attend for one or two days. Children under sixteen will be admitted free, but must be registered. Fee is payable in Great Britain pounds only, and must be received by Jim not later than June 30, 2005.

Question corner

Here are some of the things I am still working on. If you know the answer, don’t be shy.

1. Jean Allan, wife of Matt (1805) Coubrough and mother of our Grampa Jim, has been on the space alien list for a very long time. Now, thanks to Barbara McCue, our local sleuth in Thornliebank, we might have a family for her. Robert Allan and Jean Tenant were married in 1805, in Rutherglen, where their son Robert was born in 1808. Only a few miles separate Rutherglen from Thornliebank, where Jean Allan was born about 1811. Jean Allan called her second son Robert and her first daughter Jean, meaning her parents should have also been Robert and Jean. More research remains, but I think we are on the right track at last.

2. I mentioned last time that I had heard from Mr. Ian Brown, who thought the Malcolm Coubrough who married Marrion Reid might have been a son of John Coubrough and Jonet Buchanan. Disappointingly, another letter from Mr. Brown showed his proposed family tree to be exactly that: proposed.

Then, a few weeks ago, I had an e-mail from a woman named Clair Meikle-Taylor, a descendant of Grace Coubrough⁽¹⁷⁾ & John Meikle. Clair, too, had concluded that Marrion Reid’s husband was John Coubrough and Jonet Buchanan’s son. While their information seems to have been no better than mine, possibly the fact that we had all independently come to the same conclusion is indicative of our both being close to the mark.

From the evidence available, it does look as if Marrion Reid’s husband was indeed Jonet Buchanan’s son, but the connection remains a “best guess.” Marrion Reid’s son, Malcolm, however, is almost certainly the man who married Jean Buchanan in 1796. There is also some indication that Jonet Buchanan’s unconnected son James, born 1719, may have been the father of our James m. Jean Muir. There is almost certainly some connection as Barbara McCue has found graves of both families together in the Eastwood cemetery. Thin evidence, perhaps, but worth a second look.

3. Robert M. Coubrough, 29, and his wife, Ellen, 37, lived in Chicago in 1930. Along with their two sons, Robert M., 7, and Thomas, 2-½, they lived in a $65-a-month apartment at 4531 North Campbell Avenue.

Robert had been born in Scotland, in about 1901, but his wife and older son had both been born in England. The baby had been born in Illinois, on June 17, 1927, so it would seem that they had moved before that, but after his older brother was born in about 1922.

Thomas died in April 1958. I don’t know of what cause, but since he was only about 30, it must have been accident or disease.

Ellen’s husband may have been the son of Robert McFarlane Coubrough, b 1872, in Dumbarton, but it is just a guess. The middle names of both Roberts were recorded as “Mc” which could be any on of a zillion Scots names.

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Dawn Township History Book

The Dawn Township Historical Society is writing a history of the township. I have submitted short write-ups on all of the family members I have information on: Jim & Annie and Matt & Liz Coubrough, Jim & Annie and John & Margaret Brown, Neil & Flora and Coll & Mary Ann Macdonald, William & Flora Jane Atwell, and Lachlan & Maggie MacNeil. No mention is made of descendants who did not live in Dawn Township. The deposit price is $30 per copy, but I don’t know what the final price will be. I think it is to be published late this year or early next. More information is available from:

Dawn Township Historical Society

11485 Croton Line

Croton ON N0P 1K0

Footnotes:

1. The 1861 census asked for the names of persons who had been born or had died in the previous year (1860). It recorded all the same information for a deceased person as for the living.

2. I had suspected this, but had no way to prove it and didn’t know where to look.

3. Gabarus is a tiny fishing village on the east coast of Cape Breton, just south of Sydney.

4. Oldest son of Neil and Flora’s son William.

5. Sherman’s son Ken said, in the Elrose history book item, that Sherm went back to collect his mother in 1908. The Dresden Times notices of their farm sale and their leaving Dawn Twp were both dated March 1909.

6. Ken Atwell’s article says Orm was 12 when he left Ontario, but he’s a bit off. Billy Atwell may have gone to Elrose as early as 1904, when Orm would have been about 13. If they really went in 1906, Orm would have turned 16 that winter.

7. Cause unknown, but possibly edema, aka "dropsy." Doris Rutley told Donna Eraut that she, Doris, remembered her mother Rhoda taking Flora up stairs to a doctor’s office. Flora was so big from fluid that she could barely move and Rhoda had to almost carry her.

8. In other languages, like French, names commonly have both a masculine and a feminine form. Thus, Jean and Jeanne might both be named after their father, or Joseph and Josephte might both be named after their mother. This is less usual in English.

9. Elizabeth’s younger sister Catherine married Henry and William’s baby brother Thomas. Thomas & Catherine’s son Thomas Henry went to Uruguay, in the 1880s.

10. Uncle William, husband of Catherine Wedderburn, was the master of a ship that plied the Atlantic run between Greenock and the West Indies or Sugar Islands as they were known then.

11. Grandma Liz Brown’s brother Simon lived in Tacoma at this time, but there is no evidence that they knew each other.

12. Like most Europeans, Scots consider anywhere in North or South America as just "America."

13. 911 tons new measurements, whatever those were.

14. Yes, his name was really William Wallace.

15. That is, Henry was the baby brother of Wilhelmina, mother of William married Catherine Wedderburn, item 4, above.

16. I have only shown the first few paragraphs here, but I have the entire 50-page transcript, if anyone is interested.

17. Grace was the daughter of James Coubrough and Margaret Murdoch, and a granddaughter of Malcolm Coubrough and Jean Buchanan.