It would help if I got the names right!

- an afternoon at New Register House

 

I had known since I was at primary school that the parents of my great gran Smith were called Alex Foster and Isabella Anderson.

I had tried before to find their marriage, by searching under his name on the computer at New Register House, and failed to find it. So it was without much hope that I tried searching for it under her name. But to my surprise I found it straight away! No wonder I hadn't found it before - his name was given as Alexander Forrester rather than Foster. 

Isabella's unmarried parents were listed as John Anderson and Christina Louden m.s. Materson. I misread Louden as Londen and Materson as Materlow, which sent me off down some blind alleys in trying to find Isabella's birth.

I decided to try something different. I had suspected that great gran Smith had another sister besides her sister Isa (because of the naming patterns). I had found a census entry for some Fosters in Edinburgh but wasn't sure if they were ours, as they were from around Cupar or Scoonie in Fife. I looked up the entry and they were just listed as visitors to that address, so I couldn't find out if the 2 year old Christina listed was their daughter. Then I had the idea of looking for her birth certificate. When I found it I discovered she was Alexander and Isabella's daughter, and that her middle name was Masterton. Could it be that this was Christina Louden's maiden name and that the spelling was wrong on Alexander and Isabella's marriage certificate?

I decided to look for Isabella Anderson's birth. I had looked before, without much success. Now I had some new names to look for her under - Louden and Masterton (I'd already tried Anderson. Materlow, Materson and Londen!). I found her as Isabella Masterson. Her mother's name was given as Christian Masterton - so both her first name and surname were spelt differently from Isabella's marriage certificate. And Alex Foster and Isabella Anderson had turned out to be Alexander Forrester and Isabella Masterton!

I looked for Christian's marriage to a Mr Louden. I knew this had to be after Isabella's birth, since her name was Masterton then. I found the marriage in 1866. I discovered that her parents were Robert Masterton and Christian Reid - and they weren't married either! Christian Reid was deceased so I looked for her death certificate. I found a Christian Reid who died in 1861 in Cupar, but I didn't know if she was the right one. When I looked up the actual certificate I discovered it had to be her - the informant was her daughter Christian Masterton.

I now had Christian Reid's approximate date of birth, from her age on the death certificate. I found that there was an entry in the OPR at about the right date. It was now 4.20pm so I had to hurry and load the microfilm and wind it on. I found the entry for the birth of Christian Reid, and her parents were Peter Reid and Janet Tod. I knew I had found the correct entry since her father's name had been on her death certificate. She was born on 29th August 1797 - the first person I had traced back to the 1700s! Not bad for an afternoon's work!