#ffs robert

there aren’t any robert ferguses in kirkintilloch in 1841, right (which there should be, according to the man himself)

but, looking for his father, who rob says was call john. there are two!

father and son, both called john - the elder is a hand loom weaver, age 40, and the younger is a hatter, age twenty. either, really, could be rob’s dad, but it’s more likely to be the younger, considering john II’s mum is 40 years old and that would be a very difficult pregancy. so take it then that john II had a missus, either they weren’t married/living together, or her name was mary and she was 18, and also a hand loom weaver. it probably is mary, but hang on i’ll look for a marriage...

okay so john fergus II (who might have been a hatter or a slater, we shall never know) married margaret frew (who’s father was probably a grocer) in 1848, but that maggie is 13 in 1841, so that’s Very unlikely to be the correct parents of our robert

hm.

okay. if john I and agnes are robert’s parents.

they are not, by all accounts i can find (in that, there is no evidence at all anywhere about anything)

ughhh

this fuckin arse of a man

so really, all i’ve got to take from is his marriage certificate, in 1875, which says he’s a dock labourer and his dad’s called John. and the 1871 census, which says he’s already married (the liar), and their eldest daughter (at that point) was born in London in 1864.

so time to look for Emma’s baptism, then, if she had one considering her parents were not officially married until she was 10.

emma is a bust, tried james, the eldest brother (my grandfather who died in egypt after stepping on a rusty nail - or whatever else ‘puncture wound to sole of right foot’ means to a steamer sailor)

yep, he was born in february 1868 to robert and maria fergus, and baptised at st stephen’s church, and those records are kept at the record office/central library (yes, but that’s not helpful to me now, is it, because the record image isn’t online)

next kiddo is Robert, who’s baptism (eyyy thank christ) lists dad Robert as a hawker (like, a street hawker, hawking his wares, and living on Hornby Street, apparently, in the 22nd court, which by all accounts appears to be a godawful area at the time)

and then we had louisa, who is nonexistant, and lillie may, who lives only two years and has the very same name as her cousin (which gives me some pause, the inclusion of last names as middle names), and arabella, who emigrates to michigan, marries a labourer and dies age 28, but who was born in 1877 and whose baptism is the same as james’ (tho, st mary’s kirkdale), and not accessible, the fuckers

bollocks. is all i can say.

so i know that robert, in later life, was a hawker and a dock labourer and a cotton porter, and that he lived in london in 1864, and thereafter liverpool, but was born Somewhere in scotland

so. i never knew that the fergus side of my family had a tartan. i knew there’s a fergusson tartan, but not that the fergus family also wore it

mum said our uncle roger (who, his family is the last of us with the name, of our branch, because he’s only got sisters) had it at his wedding, and his kids who’ve had weddings, too

so i’ve found the fergus tartan, i don’t know yet which one it is, balquidder or athol, because the fucker who’s the original fergus of our family, as far as i can find, robert fergus born 1840, my fourth-great grandfather, the fucker never went near a bit of paper that wasn’t forced on him as far as i can tell, so all i’ve got for a birthplace is SCOT. and on one thing Kirkintilloch. which there are no Robert Fergus es born within five years of 1840 in Kirkintilloch, that I can find, and especially not with a father James who he put on his english marriage certificate, and scottish records you barely ever can look at them, you just get a really shitty transcription done automatically