Stewart and Douglas Family History

Dad’s sister-in-law died at the end of last week after quite a stay in a nursing home. Her kids have placed the usual type of announcement that you get for such things in the paper, of course:

STEWART, JEAN – August 26, 2010, peacefully, at hospital, dearly-loved mother of Muriel and Jean. Service on Tuesday 31st August 2010 at 2.00 p.m. in Kirkwoods Funeral Home, 150A Kings Road, Knock, Belfast, BT5 7EJ and afterwards to Roselawn Cemetery. Family flowers only please. Donations in lieu may be sent, if desired, for N.I. Chest, Heart and Stroke, c/o Kirkwoods Funeral Directors (address as above). Will be sadly missed by her daughters, sons-in-law Gerald and Colin, grandchildren Simon, Sarah, Jenny and John, great-grandchildren and brother George. The Lord is my Shepherd.

As in all such announcements, a full life is condensed down to just a few words of farewell and, as usual, this means that a great deal about the person is omitted.

For instance, in Jean’s case she was buried with her husband John who she spent decades and Allan, the brother of Muriel and Jean, who died when he was only six months old. Jean’s brother George lives in New Zealand and couldn’t come over to the funeral as he’s getting on a bit himself. Sadly, Jean never made it over to visit him in Auckland as John had a heart attack before he retired so they were never able to manage the months long trip that would have been needed in those days. Still, at least George was able to spend time over here with them several times over the years although perhaps not so much as they both would have liked over their 50 year separation since he emigrated. Jean was the eldest of the two being born on April 14, 1923.

She met John through her employment in a drapers shop on the Crumlin Road and they married in 1951. Between Muriel and Jean she now has four great-grandchildren Josh, Emma, Ben and Sophie as well as the grandchildren mentioned above.

Missing also is mention of the trip taken to Portrush every Easter Monday for decades along with the family above, my Dad and us, Dad’s sister Ena’s family, and their parents (four car loads at the height of it all in the 60s). And, of course, lots of other things besides, many of which I’ve forgotten and some of which were reviewed during the funeral service.

The church itself was a major part of her life and although much of her involvement with the church wasn’t known to me at the time, that she was a person who cared about her religion came across always. She was in the choir and taught in the Sunday school and was one of those relatively rare people who you just know are Christians without being told because of the things that they do and they way that they behave generally.

I can’t say that I’ll miss Jean because with John’s passing 15 years ago we weren’t as involved with her as we had been previously which is sad really. As always, there were so many people at her funeral who I should be seeing now and again but who I rarely see outside of funerals these days which is something that I’m working on changing.

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Family history is very much an on and off affair over the years for me. I find that it’s largely made up of short bursts of activity when some new information source becomes available or I hear some snippet by chance.

Thus only a few weeks ago I had a major breakthrough when I found that the 1901 census was finally online.

I hadn’t expected this to add an awful lot of information to my records as the 1911 census did. That one filled in a lot of detail about branches of the family and completed locations for me. I wasn’t expecting much from this one as everyone on the 1911 census would be on the 1901 census and I’d locations nailed down at 1896 so wasn’t expecting any big changes there.

However, there was one key thing on it: the family weren’t in the same house in 1901 as they were in 1896 and 1906. This has quite a big impact as my grandfather was born in 1899 which means that I can now get his birth certificate when previously it wasn’t found on the traces (because of the incorrect address).

Interestingly, it also confirms that my grandmothers name was Jane and not Jean/Jeannie as everyone thought. That difference seems to be down to the Ulster Scots pronunciation: she was always “ginnie” which younger folk in the family took to mean Jeannie when in fact it was the familiar form in Ulster Scots of Jane.

Finally, I’ve confirmation that the family, or at least the Youngs, did come from Scotland with my great-grandfather John Young recorded as being born in Scotland (I think near Ayr but that’s only from hearsay). His wife Catherine was born in Northern Ireland as were all their children so he appears to have come over here sometime in his 20s.

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Family history is something of an on and off hobby for me as it can sometimes be several years before more information becomes available.

In between times, it’s often worthwhile looking again at the information already to hand as there are often hidden gems amongst it. For example, the original family bible from William Stewart who was born way back on June 28th 1835 though it probably dates from September 6th 1858 when he married Eliza Dalrymple. He kept that up to date throughout his life as did his children although there are gaps both in later and earlier generations.

Those gaps can largely be filled in though. One very simple thing was realising that there was a very consistent habit of naming the first born boy and girl after the father and mother. Thus, when the “first” born wasn’t that meant that there was either a stillborn child or, more likely (because stillborn children didn’t get named), a child who died quite young. That such children existed has been confirmed in all cases where I’ve had later information about the family so, for example, the 1911 census confirmed several of these children in various branches of the family.

Other bits of information can sometimes need more thought. It was puzzling as to why David J Tannihill of Market Square Lisburn paid for the grave of my great grandfather Andrew. However, later on I found that when he died he was living in 155 Mayo Street, Belfast so if his family had bought the grave they’d have had to pay the non-resident rate for the grave. Who David Tannihill was remains, for the moment, a mystery as indeed does the reason why he wasn’t buried in Belfast instead.

I’ve suspected for a while that some of the location information I have for various people isn’t quite right as we tried to get some birth and marriage certificates where they were recorded as living at the time but found that the information just wasn’t there. So, the plan was to get the certificates from known locations and work backwards from there. That was a problem though as I didn’t know for sure where my grandfather was born. Or, rather, I didn’t realise that I really did know. That information came from his older sister Mary who died when she was 2 in Killymackel, Derriaghy (near Lisburn) of bronchitis. Thus I know that the family lived there in 1896 but in Mayo Street by 1906.

Interestingly, Derriaghy is where my Dad continued to go to the Masonic Lodge so presumably they would have some information about everyone from him back to my great grandfather and perhaps even the generation before that. Also, some years back I went round the nearby Presbyterian churchyard which seemed to have a number of Stewarts buried although at the time I hadn’t linked that with my lot (another visit is called for to recheck that information).

Finally, there’s my latest flash of inspiration. Whilst I’ve known for a while that my grandfather was in the first world war and that there should therefore be a service record for him, what didn’t occur to me is that there would be a corresponding service record from his time in the police so that’s something else to look into.

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