The Dewar Family bible...

This post explores the family my great-grandfather James Dewar left behind in Scotland when he came to Australia as a young man.

The following document is all the information we had about that family. It is a certified transcript of family details from the Dewar family bible. This is a photocopy given to my family many years ago by a cousin of my fathers, who held the original. The document, certified in 1886 by his brother Alexander in Scotland, was sent to James in Australia. I’d love to know if any distant family member retains possession of the original bible.

The document is witnessed by R.M. Mitchell, Bailie of Glasgow on April 29th1886.  A Bailie was a legal position similar to magistrate or alderman, a bit like a Justice of the Peace in todays terms. If anyone knows what the initials D.R. represent, please let me know.

This piece of paper has been the basis of my research on the Dewar family in Scotland. Secondly, DNA testing has enabled me to trace James' siblings through matches with their descendants. 

James' parents were James Dewar, born 1st November 1792 to parents Adam and Margaret Mellor,* and Margaret Abercrombie, born 5th September 1795 to parents John and Isabella (nee Wails or Walls).

*Adam and Margaret's marriage entry lists her maiden name as Drysdale but this would appear to be an error since all other documentation records it as Mellor.

I am very grateful to another Dewar descendant, a DNA match and distant cousin in Scotland, who found Margarets parent's names in the Poorhouse Records in the Paisley Library in Glasgow and transcribed them. These documents are not available online.

Margaret Abercrombie's family were originally from Sterlingshire, but had moved to Lanarkshire by the time of her birth.

James and Margaret were married 6th July 1816 in Airdrie, New Monkland, Lanarkshire. The parish record indicates they paid 3 shillings & 6 pence to the parish. Like his father before him, James was a baker. The children were born in Kincardine, a village on the northern Forth shore in Fifeshire. By the 1841 census James was listed as a baker in the larger town of Dunfermline a little further along the Forth. 

 

Priory Lane, Dunfermline.
Location of James Dewar's bakers shop.

                                             © Katrina Vincent 2016      

By the next census in 1851, he was still a baker but they had moved to the village of Calderbank, Old Monkland, Lanarkshire.  This region was rapidly industrialising with coal and ironstone mining and the landscape was criss-crossed with private railways operated by the mine owners. In 1856 at the age of 65 while working as a surface worker for the Calderbank Private Mineral Railway, James was hit by a railway locomotive and passed away. His body was interred in the Wellwynd Churchyard in the nearby town of Airdrie.

Old Wellwynd Churchyard

                                   photo from Flickr         

According to the 1861 census, widowed Margaret was working as a cotton-winder and living alone in New Monkland. Her 1870 application for poor relief stated she had been a pauper for 4 years, being partially disabled due to her age of 75 at that time. This record also stated she had recently moved to Glasgow from Paisley. 

The 1871 census recorded Margaret as an unemployed winder. Living with her was 8 year old Jane Dewar, listed as niece, but actually her grand-daughter.  Jane was the daughter of Margaret’s son Alexander.  Margaret died at Springburn 25 July 1872, cause of death listed as old age.

Now for what I have found out about each of these siblings and their families.

Adam:

Born 28 October 1817 in Kincardine, Fife. Adam was the eldest son and became a baker, like his father and grandfather.

Adam married Lilias Beveridge, in 1843 in Crossford, Fifeshire.  The couple had five children born between 1844 and 1856. Lilias died from consumption in 1859.

The following year Adam married again, to widow Jane Chalmers nee Hunter. Jane had an infant daughter, Isabella, who was listed with the family in the 1861 census.

Adam and Jane had two sons born 1863 and 1867.

According to census records, Adam appears to have moved back and forth between Glasgow and Dunfermline several times over the years. By 1893, the couple were back in Glasgow where Adam applied for poor relief. Adam passed away in the Glasgow Poorhouse on 21 July 1894 due to cerebral apoplexy – a stroke, as we know it today.

His wife Jane was admitted to the poorhouse in January 1895, wholly disabled due to rheumatism and bronchitis. She died there in 1897.

John:

Born 20 Oct 1819 in Kincardine, Fife.  He was baptised in 1822 at the same time as his sister Isabella (b1821) in Tulliallan parish.

John became a tailor, and in the 1841 census was living in Airdrie with his uncle Robert Abercrombie and family.

John married in 1843 to Mary Muir.  They had two children – Marion in 1844 and James in 1846. Marion appears to have died young as no further evidence of her found. James went on to become a Minister of Scottish Free Church.

According to the bible document, John died 10 October 1846.  I have not been able to locate a death or burial record for him.  His wife Marion subsequently had two more children with unknown father(s).

I have a DNA match to a descendant of John via his son James.

Isabella:

Born 5^th September 1821 Kincardine.

Married 13^th Nov 1844 in Edinburgh to John Ure.

Isabella and John had no children of their own, but they seem to have taken on the care of her niece Mary Buchanan, born 1856, who appeared with the couple in the 1861 & 1871 Scotland census. Mary and her husband James Brownlie were still living with Isabella & John in the 1881 census, and in 1883 both couples emigrated to the USA.  The Brownlies and the Ures settled in New York.

Isabella was widowed sometime before 1902, but I have not been able to pinpoint an exact time. She remained with the Brownlie family until her own death in 1909.

I have a DNA match to Brownlie descendants in the USA.

Margaret:

Born 6 October 1823 in Kincardine.

Married December 1846 to Michael McLauchlan, a railway worker.

The couple lived in various locations around Glasgow. They had 6 children but it appears only two daughters, Isabella b 1855 and Agnes b 1858, survived to adulthood.

In her later years, Margaret was living with her nephew Samuel Dewar, a son of her brother Alexander. Date of death possibly 1912, but not confirmed.

Janet:

Born 1 August 1825 in Kincardine.

No further confirmed information regarding Janet.

Given that there is no death listed for her in the family bible it is reasonable to assume she was still living at the time the transcript was made in 1886, when she would have been around 60 years old. 

There are a couple of potential marriages for a Janet Dewar, and a couple of census records for a single Janet Dewar, but nothing which will conclusively identify the correct Janet. I’m hoping one day another DNA match will appear! 

Mary:

Born 8^th June 1827 in Kincardine.

Married 16 Dec 1848 to Alexander Fordyce Buchanan in Paisley, Renfrewshire. Alexander was a printer.

10 children identified.

The family emigrated to New York, USA in 1866, where their youngest child Thomas was born.  

Alexander obtained employment in an oil cloth factory, eventually taking over and forming the company A.F Buchanan & Sons in Westchester, New York.  The village of Buchanan was named for the contribution made by the Buchanan family to its development.  History of the Village of Buchanan.

Mary outlived her husband by 2 years, dying in 1902.

I have several DNA matches to Buchanan descendants.

James:

My great-grandfather, born 20 April 1929 in Kincardine.

You can read his story in my previous blog here.

Became a weaver in Scotland, according to his mother’s poor house relief application.

James migrated to Australia in about 1852. He married Margaret Hill in 1859 in Geelong, Victoria.  They had 8 children. He became manager of Lime kilns in Waratah Bay. I’ve written about the Waratah Lime Works in another post here.

James died in 1907, and is buried with his wife Margaret in a little bush cemetery in Walkerville, Victoria.

James Dewar
from Pilkington Family Collection

Alexander Jaffery:

Born 22 September 1832 in Kincardine.

He married in 1855 to Elizabeth Baillie in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire.  The couple had seven children before Elizabeth died in 1868.

Alexander then married Elizabeth’s younger sister Janet in 1871 and had seven more children with her.

Alexander worked as a furnaceman for the ironworks.  He died in 1892 in Glasgow.

Interestingly, the list of James and Margaret's children indicate that the family followed a traditional naming pattern, with the first 4 children named for each of the grandparents, the next (James) after his father, then two girls Janet and Mary named for James and Margarets sisters. Only youngest child Alexander Jaffray is an outlier and was possibly named for a family friend or person of influence.