Scotland Poor Law Applications and Registers helping with a mystery

 

My 3x great grandparents John Mavor and Elizabeth Ledingham, in Ellon, Scotland never registered the births of their 11 children. Over the years, search tho I may, some of them are proving hard to find. Unless they died in Scotland after registration, I’m done for. Alexander, my 2x ggf, and his brother Francis immigrated to eastern Canada. Son John the bigamist, I found in Michigan. Christian had a son and died in the poor house. Jane (found thru dna) immigrated with her newly married daughter and son-in- law to western Canada. George moved to Glasgow for work. William was not mentioned, nor on the 1851 census, so I presume dead. Elizabeth got married and lives in Old Meldrum. That leaves Catherine, Bathia and Leslie unaccounted for. They were on the 1861 census, nothing after. 

Earlier this year Ancestry uploaded some Scotland Poor Law Applications and Registers. There was one for my 3x ggf John Mavor, and lo and behold!! All living children are mentioned. Also it’s nice to see that some of his children helped him out financially as they could. 

So this tells me that Catherine is married and living in England! So I popped over to Find my Past and there I found a Catherine Mavor (a decidedly Scottish name) marrying Joseph Pemberton. I checked a couple of the next UK censuses and, yessiree… Catherine was born in Allon (Ellon). He was a widower with children and Catherine never had any of her own. The family lived in Wales where Catherine died at a ripe old age in 1923. 

At the time Christian and Bathia were unmarried and servants living in, what looks like, Loudoun. (Any thoughts?) Still looking for Bathia. John remarks that his son John is presumed dead, because I guess he never heard from him once he left home. But I did find the scallywag as I said, in Michigan. Also Leslie is presumed dead. Still looking for him, I guess at this point he could be anywhere, and it seems to be a common name. 

So, all to say that the Poor Relief register helped me a lot in researching some members of this family.