#Emma Scarth

[animatedshortoftheday]

Happy Place (2022) [4 min] by Ahnab Amin, Luba Bobrowski, Jess Fett, Amber Ou, Joe Pan, Emma Scarth, Rachel Shen, Jacob Tobin, Lucy Wu and Zoe Xu | Canada

[deeisace]

Okay so

I think I’ve made a post about this before

Or at least I’ve thought about doing that

Anyway so

My uhhhh 4th?-great grandfather (Geoff, Robert, James, Robert, yep) Robert Fergus was a bit of a mystery - he said he was born in 1840 in Kirkintilloch to John Fergus, right, but no such guy exists as I can find

So I widened the search parameters a bunch, actually checked the census records as well as the baptism records - found a Robert Fergus born in Kirkintilloch in 1839, but this time to a James Fergus

Now, following Robert, James was a bit of a family name - his son and two of his grandsons were James, too - if this James went by some nickname (not at all uncommon), or his middle name was John (I don’t know, but I do know an American grandson was called J J, so it might’ve been so), that’s where a mistake might’ve been made, I spose

Also further clues, this Robert-son-of-James had a sister Isabella, where my Robert had a daughter who was recorded as Isabella as a child, and Arabella as an adult (I don’t know if she changed her name on moving to America or before then, but she went to her maternal aunt in Oak Park Illinois, along with two of her Scarth cousins), and also a granddaughter Isabella too

Family names tend to follow, and the dates and places tally well enough, so I’m pretty sure that these two Roberts are the same person

So James, Robert’s father, was a coal merchant in Greenock West - as such I do have a couple adverts he placed in the local paper - notices of moving premises and a list of coal prices by weight, and also one time some guy stole seven of his shirts (like off a washing line?? I have no idea) so he took him to court for the theft

And I’ve had a bit of a clickabout anyway, and this morning I’ve found a listing that says that Robert Fergus son of James Fergus coal merchant was admitted to the Greenock Poorhouse in 1859 on mental health grounds

I’ve no idea what that might mean, but I’ve ordered the record to read (hopefully by next month it’ll arrive)

It does explain why he’s nowhere to be found on the 1861 censuses, tho

He only turns up again as a dock labourer in Liverpool in 1871 

....

Oh god what’s going on

Hang on a fuckin minute

James Linklater Fergus, who is definitely my 3rd-great grandfather, cs the names follow

He’s the one who died by stepping on a nail on a ship in Egypt in 1898

Him, right. There’s a baptism record - for him, name correct, parents’ names correct, date correct enough - and it says “father’s occupation - solicitor”

Which. Which is not right. The guy was a docker, says so on every following record (cotton porter, dock labourer, day labourer, etc)

Did. Did they just want to sound fancy for the church? Did he have money problems or smth in the next two years, for him then to be listed a docker?

Okay okay. Right. So. 

Emma Baikie Fergus was born in London, in 1864, we know that, though nothing else. Then James, born in Liverpool to Maria and Robert-the-solicitor, Hornby Street, 1868. Then Robert, born in Liverpool to Maria and Robert-the-hawker, Hornby Street, 1869. Then we have the 1871 census, where he is a dock labourer. Then Lilly May Johnston Fergus, to Maria and Robert in 1874 (and isn’t that something, that she has her aunt’s married name for a middle name - was Maria about with her sister’s husband, or is there another reason?) - she died before the next census, age 3, and I’ll have to take a trip up Anfield Cemetery again, see if I can’t find her (she’s in with someone else, the record says, but then, so’s my sister, and she’s got a name on a stone, so - idk if they will’ve done the same 145 years ago as they did 25, tho, she mightn’t have a stone, or one surviving - her/our grandfather John’s is broken, anyway, so I haven’t read it). Then apparently this is when Maria Scarth and Robert Fergus marry, though it was definitely those two on the 1871 census and I can’t imagine John Scarth (Maria’s dad the cathedral choir master) would’ve been happy had he known they were what’s the phrase ‘living in sin’. Then we have Arabella/Isabella Margaret Fergus, born to Robert and Maria in 1877 - and in 1881, he’s listed as a labourer.

Ah. Ah fucking ha, right

Solicitor is another word for “someone who sells”

There, it’s all fine, it matches, that’s what hawker means too

But a new mystery with Lilly May there, tho. And I’d forgotten that Maria and Robert didn’t marry until far later than they ought’ve done. 

I don’t know about Emma, exactly. But the next baptism record on from James in 1868 is for an Emma Baikie born to Maria and John Baikie, a captain (presumably of a ship) also living on Hornby Street. Is this more evidence of Maria Scarth being unfaithful (along with little Lil’s middle name)? Cs it’s only her who shows up when I click on Maria Baikie - Maria Scarth and Maria Fergus. And Captain John Baikie doesn’t appear to exist outside of this one record as I can find, and there certainly isn’t one who married a Maria (though there are a couple of Marys, as there always is)

So was she out-of-wedlock, then, or adopted in some other manner

Or, the records are just lost, that also happens reasonably often and is I spose the simplest explanation in a way.