AJS writing
Jessie and GH's children
William (1871- )
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I can find no information about firstborn William F at all other than his presence, aged nine, in the 1881 census. There is an immigration record for William Ferrier, of the right age and born in Broughty Ferry, travelling with daughter Esther from Glasgow to Canada in September 1926. There is another for William and Esther Ferrier arriving at Glasgow from Canada in November 1926, intending to live in Scotland. There are several other similar records for William Ferriers but none of these has any helpful identifying details.
George Anderson (1873-1950?)
George was a mercantile clerk living at home in 1891. He then vanishes from the British records. The US 1900 census offers a Geo A Ferrier, day labourer, living in Jenny Lind Township, California. A naturalized George Anderson Ferrier enlisted in the US Army in 1918 (his birth was in July 1875, our man’s birth was July 1873; another typo?). At the time, he was married and a transportation foreman at the Hercules Powder Company in Contra Costa, California, where he lived with his wife, Philomena (ca1886-1966). He had emigrated from Scotland in 1892. Philomena made a life claim on 19 September 1950 on the US Social Security: she died in 1966 so perhaps her claim was for support after George’s death. I have not found evidence for any children.
Charles (ca1876-)
Charles was in the family firm, Ferrier & Company, and became its sole owner when GH died in 1900, which suggests his older brothers had either died or emigrated. He was present when his mother died in 1900 and was the head of the household in 1901 that comprised him, his sister, Winifred, and a servant. I have found no further definitive record for Charles. A Charles Ferrier, merchant, born in 1876 in Broughty Ferry, whose most recent address was with a Mrs Ferrier, 29 Morgan St, Dundee, arrived in New York in September 1907 and a Scots-born Charles Ferrier of the right age is boarding in Shelby County, Tennessee in 1910 but I am reluctant to suggest this might be our man. If it was, he was first an accountant then an auditor for the American Bag Company. On the other hand, the Shelby county seat is Memphis where Charles’ sister, Winifred, lived. Both Scottish and US records offer no more possible sightings. ancestry.com offered a strange collection of hints: that Charles married a Christina McLennan with whom he had a son, Charles (1905-95). However, Inverness-based Ms McLennan also married a James Wood in 1908, the year after our Charles may have arrived in the US. ScotlandsPeople have no record of a Ferrier/McLennan marriage between 1895-1910 and baby Charles was known as Charles McLennan.
Winifred Ellen (1880-1960)
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Winifred features in newspaper reports of school student achievements, and she was a soprano in the Dundee Choral Society (1900-03). In 1910, she emigrated to the US, her final UK address was that of her aunt, Miss Ferrier, 46 Castle St, Dundee. It seems she trained to be a midwife before she left because her name is on the 1915-25 UK Midwives Roll. Her address on the roll is c/- her cousin, Evelyn Bruce-Austin, 42 Comeragh St, West Kensington. Winifred entered the Midwives Roll on 3 May 1910, a week later she sailed from Liverpool to New York, her final destination Memphis, Tennessee. She became a naturalised US citizen in 1925 and remained independent all her life. According to her naturalisation declaration, Winifred was five foot six inches with brown hair and grey eyes. The City Directory entry in the year of her death says she was a nurse at the Baptist Hospital. Aged 80, Winifred died in Memphis on Christmas Eve, 1960.
