AJS writing
John and Agnes’ children
Margaret Fairweather (1879-1957)
Margaret's name combines those of the mother and the boarder from the 1861 Scottish census. By the 1871 census, the mother Margaret and boarder Peter had married. If this is our Agnes’s family, her firstborn daughter would be named after her mother, Margaret. A nostalgic find was the announcement of Margaret's, then her brother's, birth in the Dundee newspapers: John had named his house, at the other end of the earth, Mount Rosa Cottage.
Margaret married Edward McLiskey McPhail (1881-1954) in 1913. They lived in Montague Street, Ravensbourne, so perhaps the name Rothesay had been subsumed as the area developed so explaining why I didn’t hear it while I was growing up. Margaret is on her own in the 1954 roll, living in Totara Street. The couple is buried together in the Anderson’s Bay Cemetery; I have not found any record of children.
Images: Dunedin Cemeteries web site
John Bain (1880-1881)
​John died in infancy. Even more poignantly, he died before his birth was announced in Dundee. Perhaps this is why there do not seem to be similar announcements when his two sisters were born after his death. This seems to be a family pattern, there are no birth records for David and Martha’s children after the death of Martha Brown Anderson in infancy. John Bain A Jnr is buried with his parents in Dunedin’s Northern Cemetery.
Jessie Ferrier A (1889-1956)
Jessie must have been named after her father’s sister or perhaps given the intergenerational family 'Jessie'. She and her sister, Minnie, remained single all their lives.
Elizabeth Mary (Minnie)(1891-1972)
Minnie and Jessie lived at the same address as their parents and are buried together in the Anderson’s Bay Cemetery. Returning to the 1861 Scottish census, the Elisabeth in that record was the Agnes’s older sister, which sort of complies with the tradition of naming the fourth daughter, in this case the fourth child, after the mother’s older sister. At their respective deaths, the three sisters were living in Totara Street, Ravensbourne: Jessie at No 6, Minnie at No 16 (I suspect it was either 6 or 16, rather than two different houses) and Margaret at No 12. I can't find the source of the picture to be reminded whether the house (left) is 6 or 16.
The People's Journal
1 November 1879
British Newspaper Archives
The Weekly News
29 January 1881
British Newspaper Archives