From Scotland to America

She Came to America

Fearless Female Ancestors Series by Lisa Alzo:
March 27 — Do you know the immigration story of one or more female ancestors? Do you have any passenger lists, passports, or other documentation? Interesting family stories?

Most likely, poverty and loneliness, inspired this fearless woman, Janet McKechnie, wife of George Craig to come to America.  This is part of the passenger list of 1895 that shows widowed Janet and her three children coming to Fall River, MA.

Tracking her in Scotland is harder than I expected. Longriggend (see above) is a village name, I think. 

My mother-in-law told me she was a recent widow and she came to America at the urging of her closest sibling, Catherine who married, in Scotland, John Duff. The mill he worked in in Scotland wanted him to come to America to set up business in Massachusetts. 

In 1891, Janet, who could not read or write but who was "good with numbers" is listed in the census with her twin children, James, my husband's grandfather and Margaret. Younger teenage child, Janet, was working on a dairy farm just as it says here. She is listed with a farm family in the 1891 census.

Can you imagine leaving home, with three teenagers, when you can't read or write?

Janet McKechnie Craig's husband , George, died in 1891 after the census and she must have struggled to make ends meet. My mother-in-law's note say she worked in a company store, in the mining community where her husband worked before he died. It takes a fearless woman to work when she can neither read nor write. 

Five years after arriving in America, Janet's son, James, got married and  the couple moved in with the wife's parents. Janet was angry and took it out on her two daughters.  They worked to support their mother until she died in 1918. More fearless than their mother, they made their way in the world and never married. My husband remembers them.

Janet McKechnie Craig Smiles

Fearless Female Ancestors Series by Lisa Alzo         (1,900th blog post!)

Janet McKechnie, undated photo, in photo collection of Midge Frazel

Janet McKechnie Craig

...Where sits our sulky sullen dame.
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm...

Robert Burns "Tam o' Shanter" 
as seen in M.C. Beaton's Hamish McBeth's Death of a Valentine, Chapter 9

Janet McKechnie, widow of George Craig,  ruled her family "with an iron fist", my mother-in-law typed in a short family history. But since my mother-in-law was only three years old in 1918 when this grandmother died, I encouraged her to talk to her oldest sibling to find out more. Aunt Jane, born in 1901, was 17 when Janet McKechnie Craig died and so she remembered her well. 

At a family luncheon, my husband's aunt, talked about Janet and told the following story... 

One day, Janet McKechnie Craig took the trolley to visit the home of her only son, James. [James Craig, my mother-in-law's father] 

She did so because she said he was "neglecting her,  his mother" and she wanted to know why. 

Since James was at work, she confronted her daughter-in-law, Hannah [Hannah Wilde Craig, my mother-in-law's mother] who was home with small children, the oldest being Jane. Jane told us that Janet was stern and unsmiling all of the time, unlike this photograph. 

Janet blamed her daughter-in-law and told her that it was Hannah's fault for the neglect because she had "too many" children. When Hannah retorted with "you should talk to her son about that", Janet became insulted and stormed out onto the street. 

Hannah fearing that her husband would be angry, sent Jane out to bring her grandmother back inside. They patched it up over a cup of tea. 

With research and the typed family history, I have learned that James and Hannah had a baby born and died at 17 days, of suffocation of bedding and may have had another child the next year. By, the time this incident happened, there could have been even more children for Janet to complain about. 

James and Hannah married in 1900, which was far too soon after Janet arrived in 1895 with her son and his two sisters. She expected to be "taken care of". James not only worked in the mill, he took correspondence courses in office work to become a foreman. He was a little busy to deal with the tantrums of his mother. 

What did he do? He let his sisters, Margaret and Janet deal with her. We call them, "The Great Aunts" and my husband does remember them. 

Tombstone Tuesday; Janet McKechnie Craig

Fearless Female Ancestors Series by Lisa Alzo

Tombstone Tuesday: Janet McKechnie Craig

Photo of Janet McKechnie Craig's Headstone by Glenn Russell, 2002, used with permission

Janet Craig (1842-1918)

My husband's maternal family are buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River, MA (or in Mt. Hope Cemetery) in Swansea, MA). Since we now live a good distance from this location and both cemeteries are massive, I decided to turn to Find-a-Grave volunteer, Glenn Russell for help.

Even through he was moving, he has been very helpful locating and posting his finds to Find-a-Grave. 

This small headstone was probably placed here by her son, James Craig, my husband's grandfather. Then, he buried his 1st wife Hannah Wilde Craig in the same plot. He married again and his buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery in Swansea, MA with his second wife, Ella LANG.

Janet Craig is a VERY common name to research and it doesn't help that her husband's name was George. Many records list Scottish women named Janet, as Jean and Jennie. It depended in many cases what was heard when this name was pronounced.
It has taken a long time to find out more about her. Before she died, my mother-in-law encouraged us to keep researching her because she was a "Fearless Female". I promised to keep looking.

It would have helped if they had put her full name on the gravestone. Her maiden name was McKechnie and because that is not as common as Craig, and Scottish women often included their maiden name on records, I have been able to move ahead to tell her story.

She is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River, Bristol, Massachusetts. Her husband, George Craig is buried in Scotland.

Scraps with Record

Scraps with Record, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Where did the Craig family come from in Scotland?

Tracking a person with Scotland's People's web site with little of no information is hard. Even when asked years ago, my mother-in-law didn't know exactly where her father was born.

I have tried without luck to find his birth record. He had a twin sister and a younger sister. I was hoping to find one of them so I could find the others.

Tucked in a strongbox, along with my mother-in-law's teaching certificate and other mementos was an envelope with scraps of a record. The reason I could not make sense of it was that it was two birth records with incomplete pieces. Twins!

You will be pleased to hear that I did find the birth records at Scotland's People. When I searched for his great aunt that was the twin, I found that the numbers for the GROS were the same! This meant that the twins were recorded on the same page. If they hadn't been recorded on the same page, I would have paid extra for the next page. (The pay by credit system used by Brightsolid works this way and I don't like it.)

  I think that is my biggest rant with the "pay as you search" is that you can't look at the next page with census records as I have been taught.

Wedding Booklet

Wedding Booklet, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Wedding Memories

On May 18, 1937, my in-laws were married. In 1971, we got married in the same church. Now that they are gone, I am still swamped with photos that I have not gone through.

I did find this small wedding booklet with the signatures of all of their guests. When I was planning my wedding, 40 years ago, I would have liked her to show this to me. She must not have remembered that she had it. It has pages with all the signatures of the guests. Teenaged cousin Eleanor's name was there. She didn't remember too much about it.

The great part about finding this is being sure who the best man and maid of honor are in the photos that we have.

Happy anniversary to my in-laws who are gone but not forgotten.

Watermelon Fest

Watermelon Fest, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Watermelon Fest!

My husband's Aunt Jane with her friends eating watermelon.  Isn't this a great photo?

James H. Entwistle Dies

James H. Entwistle Dies, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

James H. ENTWISTLE, husband of my husband's Aunt Jane CRAIG Entwistle died 17 Jun 1953 while out delivering milk to commercial businesses.

Notice how detailed this obituary is! This type of information about the death itself is not commonly found in newspaper obituaries today. 


Since my husband was a little boy when this uncle died, this is the most information we have about him. I did find out at Aunt Jane's calling hours that there are quite a few living members of this family. My mother-in-law told them that she had sheet music for his piano that her sister kept and did they want it?

Upon my engagement in 1971, I asked each woman in my future husband's family how they would like their invitation addressed. Much to my surprise, Aunt Jane started to cry when I suggested that she, as a widow, should have her name as Mrs. James H. Entwistle. I was SO sure that she was a recent widow!

My future mother-in-law stepped in and said to address it with her name and not her husband's as he died so long ago. She told me not to worry about it because Aunt Jane always cried when her  husband's name was mentioned.

As you can see by this obituary, his date of birth and his parent's names are listed. He was an Odd Fellow and a Mason.

Teachable moment: Detailed obituaries are full of information to be verified but they are good for finding out where to begin with your search.

 

Craig & Entwistle Wedding

Jane E. Craig and James H. Entwistle, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Aunt Jane's Wedding Invitation (Part 1)

Wedding invitations, saved as one of life's most wonderful events, might suffer from future generations lack of knowing who the people were and so they are discarded.

Invaluable for not only the date, the location of the wedding and the reception can add a picture of the treasured day and add a lot to the story of life. As the reception card is a separate piece of paper (and smaller), it can be easily overlooked and not scanned.

Teachable moment: Notice that this couple got married on a Wednesday. How many couples today marry on a weekday? It is worth noting this weekday in your family tree.

Laminated Obituary Bookmark

Obit Jane Craig Entwistle, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Obituary and Death Notice

When we went to the funeral home for the calling hours, the funeral director gave the immediate family a bookmark. I tucked it in my bag. When we were driving home, I pulled it out an examined it. One side is the 23rd Psalm. I still can't recite it all. When I turned it over, I was very pleased to see this scan.

In addition to the name of the funeral home, there was the death notice and the obituary laminated together. This is from the Providence Journal which is the major newspaper for the whole state of Rhode Island. at that time I was wondering how I was going to get a copy of this so I sat back in the seat and relaxed on the way home.

Just a few years later, when my mother-in-law died, I wrote her obit. It cost a thousand dollars for this same newspaper.  In between that time and Aunt Jane's two things occurred.

1. The complete demise of the death notice
2. The extra expense of the photograph of the deceased

 In the past, only the death notice was free. (Some newspapers still offer this but it is increasingly disappearing.) 

In this example, the death notice is the only place where the date of death is recorded. Now that, this has been eliminated, the person who write the obituary will need to include the actual date and there is no assurance that the obit will not be edited by the newspaper staff. The date of the printing is of course, at the top of each page but most people forget to cut that out when saving an obituary.
 
The photograph in an obituary is a great clue about the person's life. I have noticed that many, unlike Aunt Jane, are of when the person was young. Many men and women are in uniform. But, many newspapers are not allowing a photo unless the person was famous.


Teachable moment: People should be taught to make sure they add the date to a cut-out obit.
Teachable moment: Perhaps everyone should pick out their own photo for their own obit or to be on display at a memorial service.

First Born Child

James CRAIG with his daughter Jane, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

First Born Child: Jane E. CRAIG

My husband's aunt, Jane E. CRAIG born on 25 May 1901 is the little baby in this photograph.

James Craig, her father, looks very pleased to be a father, doesn't he? He probably never imagined she would live until nearly 102 years old.

I am using her life events in my blog because of the number of available records I have found that I think will be absent in the future. You will see why I say this as we go along.

Yesterday, I posted the gravestone she and her husband share. They had no children to appreciate the events of her life so like many childless couples their photographs and other memorabilia will not survive unless I write about it.

Jane's father, James will be blogged about at a later date but let me say here today, he was born in Scotland. When I blog about him, I will show you the wedding photo of them taken in 1900.

Jane was born in Fall River to James and his wife Hannah WILDE in Fall River, MA. He was a "cloth folder" at the time of her birth. [MA VR 1841-1910 508:191]

James and Hannah went on to have four or five more daughters and a son. One or two daughters died in infancy. My mother-in-law was not sure of their names or when they were born. I do know they are buried with their mother in the Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River, MA

Teachable moment: Photograph of gravestone taken shortly after her husband dies in 1953 is a record of a gravestone photograph in black and white. She doesn't die until 2003. 
Teachable moment: Formal photograph of a baby with her father taken about 1901 or 1902. Not every family has a photo that survives that long (and you haven't seen the next one yet).

Entwistle Gravestone

Entwistle Gravestone, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Oak Grove Cemetery, Fall River, Bristol, MA

Much to our surprise, this black and white photo (dated 1954) of a gravestone was found in the pile of unsorted photos of my husband's family.

This is the gravestone of my husband's Aunt Jane E. Craig and her husband James H. Entwistle. Jane was my mother-in-law's oldest sibling. When she died at the age of almost 102, we helped with her funeral and her burial. It was my first ride in a limo.

This photo makes this area of the graveyard look empty. I can assure you that there is NO empty space around this gravestone. When we stood there in the rain, I wished I could take a photograph of both sides of the stone. I need to go back to this massive cemetery in Fall River, Massachusetts and find the gravestones of my mother-in-law's family. It is really not that far away. 

While building her page at my tree at Ancestry.com, I thought how amazing it is to live to be almost 102. I know that her photo collection has been mixed in my the rest of my husband's family photos so I have begun organizing and scanning them. It is best to start with Aunt Jane. As the oldest child, she told us stories that no one else can. This is the photo that was on display at her service.

 

Craig Grandmothers abt 1902

Craig Grandmothers
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

One day, my mother-in-law, showed me this multi-generational photo of her family. My husband had never seen it. I was so excited!

I was fortunate that she let me take it home and scan it and return it to her safely. I'd love to borrow it again and rescan it with my new scanner but I am not sure they remembered to take it when they moved. When the baby in this photo died, I printed this up, put it in a frame and took it to the calling hours. The people who came were very impressed! My mother-in-law couldn't understand why I had done that. (My husband was pleased. Yes, I live on the edge, but my mother-in-law did tell me later that she was glad I took it with us)

The baby in this photo is my husband's aunt, Jane Craig (1901-2003) so we would say this photo was taken when she was about two years old. The youngest woman is her mother (my husband's grandmother) Hannah WILDE (1877-1932) wife of James CRAIG.

The woman to the far left of the photo must be Hannah's mother, Jane Elizabeth MELVIN (1840-1910) wife of Eli WILDE. But, we are not sure about the oldest lady, seated to the right. My research tells me that she might be named Sarah, wife of Michel MELVIN.