I recently spent a day cozily tucked in the National Records of Scotland (a.k.a. the Scottish national archives), investigating a thief and a minister ~ not the same person ;-)
Let's leave the minister for a future diary..... still working on his details.
One advantage to finding black sheep as one is adding foliage to the family tree is that they leave records ~ and, to a genealogist, that's a good thing!
Follow me over the fold for some genealogical fun....
I've written before about my great-grandfather Peter McGee. Born to an Irish Catholic family in Edinburgh, he was adopted by a (bordering on Free Church) Presbyterian family who lived in Loanhead and Leith.
Earlier in this trip, I was in Glasgow, and had a chance to use the resources at the amazing Mitchell Library ~ the whole fifth floor is dedicated to genealogy..... the local history section, the Glasgow archives, and the registrar (with computer connections to Scotlandspeople on a daily rather than pay-per-view basis).
One of the resources that the Mitchell has in the Glasgow city archives is a treasure trove of 19th century poor relief applications. Edinburgh has some surviving indices of who was receiving relief (we'll come back to those....) but Glasgow still has the huge Victorian ledgers with all the details of people's reasons for needing relief.
Just for fun, I ran all the names I am looking for on this trip through the computer index to the relief records. And, much to my surprise, up popped Margaret McGee, wife of Thomas Casey, and sister to my great-grandfather Peter. I had records for her from Dundee (where she married and died) and Edinburgh (where she grew up and had a couple children), but I'd had no indication that she had been in Glasgow.
But there she was, applying for relief in Glasgow in April 1871, for herself and her two daughters.
Her husband was in jail, awaiting trial.
The relief application tells me that she was Roman Catholic, living at 100 High St. {with a Mrs. Malone} and she has two daughters (Helen, aged 2, and Elizabeth, 4 months). She gave her birth place as Grassmarket, Edinburgh and her age as 22. She says she was in the poorhouse in Edinburgh in 1870, although she's not in the index for relief that year.
Her husband Thomas, son of Andrew Casey and Catherine Brannan, was born in Newcastle and was a shoemaker; they married in 1868 in Dundee.
The record gives Margaret's parents' names, Frank McGhee and Helen Cassidy, so I know I have the right one ;-)
So much nice detail......
The relief board ended up denying her, as her husband hadn't deserted her nor was he deceased.
She was back a couple years later, asking for help again in Glasgow in January 1873. She's now 23, with daughter Helen aged 4 and son Thomas, aged 6 months. She claims Thomas was born in Glasgow (which would have increased the chances of getting relief easily) but his birth was actually registered in Dundee. She also gives Edinburgh as her place of marriage, instead of Dundee, and says she was a pauper in Cowgate (a street/area of Edinburgh) her whole life. She says she had been deserted by Thomas.
She later applied for relief in Dundee in 1874, where, unfortunately, like Edinburgh, only the index volumes survive. And, then.... in August 1877, Mrs. Smith, aunt to the two Casey children, applies, again back in Glasgow, for assistance with the children. Margaret had come back from Manchester, where Thomas has once again abandoned her, and left the children with Mrs. Smith while searching for work. The two Casey children end up in the poorhouse from August until October, when they are removed to Edinburgh and reunited with their mother.
I haven't found a record of the 1871 trial for Thomas (either he was acquitted or the trial was in a court that is one of the few that isn't part of the central archive index), but I did find another one from the late 1880s, in Dundee, where he pled guilty to theft. He also listed three previous convictions in a local Dundee court.
Thomas Casey is accused of breaking into a shop in Mid St., Dundee, owned by shoemaker Hugh McInally, and stealing a scarlet military tunic, 3 pair of boots, a pair of shoes, and various other items like awls, lasts, and an iron. He pleads guilty, says' he can't write, and admits three previous convictions (all in Dundee ~ 1883 - theft of 6 pr. shoes, 30 days in prison; 1884 - theft, tin basin, 40 days in prison; 1887 - theft, silver watch, 60 days). His supposed accomplice denies he was involved ~ blames it all on Casey.
I'll spare you the pages of testimony, other than to say that liquor may have been involved and that Margaret is mentioned as Margaret McGhee or Casey (as women in Scotland, even in the Victorian era, didn't completely lose their maiden names....), so she's evidently no longer deserted. One of the witnesses says that she saw slippers made from the scarlet tunic that Margaret cut down to use.
Casey is sentenced to six months in jail.
So..... this week, I am in Edinburgh, and one of the places I made sure to go to research is the city archives, as its records are unlikely to be digitized in the near future.
Edinburgh no longer has the actual poor relief applications that Glasgow has, but they do still have the printed annual summaries of who was receiving relief. The summaries don't capture everyone ~~ for example, Margaret McGee Caey's 1870 poorhouse stint isn't listed ~ but..... yeah..... there's Peter at 8 months old, along with Margaret and his other two surviving siblings, in the poorhouse in 1862 ~ a couple months before his mother died.
Then, the next year, at the age of two, he's been placed with the family that would eventually adopt him. Edward, his brother, is placed with a different family (with the coincidence of another foster who is also named Peter McGee in that household).
Edward is listed with the Mason family for several more years, until he is old enough that he is listed under apprentices rather than children boarded out ~ with the other Peter with him most of those years. My Peter, on the other hand, isn't listed again.
So all of this doesn't add any new branches to my tree ~ and it certainly hasn't helped me figure out who Margaret and Peter's father Francis's parents were ~ but the hunt is certainly fun!