Delving into the family history on and off for about 20 years has left me hopelessly addicted to the following clues, hunches and inevitable red herrings that are all needed to piece together the bare chapters of someone's life. Unable to resist people's 'brick walls' or an innocent query re the origin of grandparents and those before, there's nothing better than trying to find the unfound.
This is my sudoku, my multilevel crossword, my jigsaw where most of the pieces are missing and there's definitely no picture to start from.
So - to satisfy this addiction, each week I intend to choose someone at random from the 1881 census (checking that their story hasn't already unfolded on ancestry.co.uk) and uncover, piece together what I can from internet sources their untold story.
The puzzling and the unfolding story will be told in this blog.

Monday 23 July 2012

First protagonist - Alexander Cowan

There were only 2 Alex* Cowan (including variants) marriages in England between 1881 and 1891: one West Derby, Liverpool and one in Tynemouth. The Liverpool one 1889 looks as it was to Amelia Boulton as in 1901 Alexander and Amelia Cowan  are in Liverpool - Alexander though was born 1867 in Liverpool. The Tynemouth one married Ann Dick 1884 (eliminated the other possible spouses by finding them married to each other in a later census), however I can't find Alexander and Ann in 1891.

 Unable to find Alexander beyond the 1881, apart from his possible death in 1890 in Rotherham, can I find the story that brought him from Scotland to managing a pub in Rotherham?

 Unfortunately no sign of him England in 1871 - great! Plenty of Alexander Cowan's in Scotland though! First protagonist, and I'm failing miserably to find his story. Not even searching for clues by finding the other occupants of the King's Arms in 1881 is helping - I can't find them either apart from plenty of possible marriages for Ada Littlewood a servant who was visiting them.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)