Fodderty - Alexander's siblings and DNA

Three generations of Alexander Bains are now clear. The first married to Margaret Chisholm [often written as Chisolm] in 1796; their son Alexander who married Catherine Matheson in 1830, and the third one who emigrated to the Australian colonies in 1852. For all we know Alexander the first might have been the son of another Alexander!

So which of the various Alexanders am I talking about? After finding the marriage record for Alexander and Margaret Chisholm in 1796, I went looking for their children. I found just one, Margaret Bain born 25 March 1797 in Dingwall, nine months after the wedding. And yet their son Alexander was born some time after 1810? That is a long gap to not have more children.

I then turned to DNA but it was a funny introduction. While searching Ancestry.com for Margaret Chisholm I came across five hints, one of which was to a tree. I opened the tree but it was missing the maternal side, and I could see no-one with the name Bain, even though the tree was called 'F____/ C____/Bain/M____" Family Tree.  I thought to click on his profile. Immediately I saw he was a DNA match to me! That was unexpected.

And I could now see the rest of his tree with the Bain connection on his mother's side. Since adding Margaret Chisholm to my tree, we now have a Common Ancestor hint, and so now his tree is showing both sides of this pedigree. Phew. 

We share 11cM over one segment, and we are 5th cousins. Could this be through some other as yet unknown Scottish or perhaps Irish ancestor? I was relieved to see we shared three matches who I know are descendants of Margaret Bain and Robert Buchan in Australia. I looked to see if any of my relatives also matched him - Pat and Kathryn did, but none of my siblings. I also took note that one of our shared matches was C___ J___ Bain - who I was going to have to look at later.

Chris stated that his ancestor, John Bain, was the son of Alexander Bain and Margaret Chisholm. How did he know? There was no image of his death certificate on Ancestry.com. [Scotlands People formally allow 20 images to be published on the internet per person to stay within copyright rules]. Chris had provided a death date, so I bought the certificate and was very happy to see that John, said to be 71 years old in 1887, so born about 1816, was the son of "Alexander Bain, crofter [deceased] and Margaret Chisholm [deceased]... Informant Mary Ann Munro daughter of Invergordon". He died of heart disease and paralysis. John had been a house carpenter, and was the widower of Helen Clark, just as Chris had recorded in his tree. So many clues.

I found only one John in all of Ross-shire whose father was Alexander and he was baptised in December 1809 in Fodderty. This is not conclusively the correct John, for to date I can see no Alexander, son of an Alexander either, and yet I know he existed.

This led me to try to document all descendants of John Bain and Helen Clark, so that I might better recognise them in my DNA match lists. This work is ongoing.

However I continued with checking people who had Margaret Chisholm in their trees, and found another possible son, William Bain. Trees said that William was born about 1820 and had just one son named Wormald. And yet I did not get too exciting about this because the tree owner, Neil McKenzie was not sure of his birthdate. Wormald, an interesting name. 

About this time I decided to use another ScotlandsPeople trick I had developed for finding children of a couple whose names I did not know, nor whose death dates I did not know. ScotlandsPeople does publish the mother's maiden name in some indexes to death. When using this trick it is vital to click on Fuzzy Matching as an option for the two surnames. I entered Bain and Chisholm dying between 1855 [when the index began] and 1920 [assuming not many people live 100 years] for all of Scotland.

Instructions given for search at ScotlandsPeople

There were 24 'hits'. Because the returns also included age at death, it is possible to whittle the number down to people born between 1797 and 1825. Only two had not died in Ross-shire. I bought six certificates. To my joy, five children of Alexander and Margaret were found, including my Alexander in 1864, John in 1887, as well as Mary in 1885 [born c1809], William in 1895 [born c1815] and Donald in 1890 [born c1822]. Given the inaccuracy of the ages at death, I am not confident in any of the years of birth. But three more children to track through census and other records, including a William born much earlier than Neil had thought.

As I looked for people in my Bain-coded match list for people who had the surname Bain in their trees, I found another DNA match - can you believe this, to Wormald Bain. Matches from William are Robert App____, rodraig____,  I was believing Neil now!

Other matches who are John Bain's descendants are Di Fe____ and Cathy Mac______. 

There are also several matches who descend from a Harry Bain born 1808 and Isobel McKenzie. One was C___ J___ Bain, who came up as a shared match with Chris, as well as Richard W_____. Harry is from Kiltearn, where Alexander Bain and Catherine Matheson married in 1830.

In sifting through the trees who share Bain+Chisholm+Matheson DNA is one major hurdle - the paucity of surnames in any small region due to the Clan traditions of the Highlands. See later post on this difficulty. Yet there are lines back to all the villages mentioned in our own family.