Michael Bradley
27-Feb-09, 17:31
Can anyone help or advise a newcommer - both to this org and to family hunting?
My father-in-law used the name Robert McMurray from when he met and married Olive Williams in Cheltenham Glos in 1944 until his death on his supposedly 72nd birthday 15 Sept 1967.
I can find no record on the internet which closely match this man prior to the marriage in July 1944, and am intrigued by his previous 50 years.
The stories which he told to my wife and her siblings include:
His father "John" (supposedly of Robert, of John, etc) was a surveyor with "the Earl of Fife's Africa expedition", who died between the time of sending his wife "home" for her confinement and the time when the infant Robert could travel (presumably to rejoin John in Aftrica, or to go to bording school).
Mother was granted a "grace and favour" cottage just outside the gates to "the big house" in Banff which Robert referred to as Orchard Cottage (we have visited a building immediately outside the gates to Duff House) which closely matches the stories, but the owner has found no records of its occupation prior to his purchase from the estate).
Mother was reputed to be "a Gordon" who could wear the hunting tarten (plus sundry others which I can't accurately remember), whilst father John was a "Murray of Athol" (Robert always claimed that Mc meant "son of"; could it be that he was registerred and brought up under his mother's maiden name - hence my lack of search responses - if so then how to I proceed?).
The cottage inhabitants had "a cook and a pot boy", Robert was sent to "an accadamy" (whose name began with "H" but that is all I know); Robert "learned his golf at a little place down south called St Andrews"; he was apprenticed to an horologist; and supposedly joined the army in 1914 "under age" whence he contracted recurring malaria "whilst serving in Italy" (again, I have found no military records which appear to match him).
Aftr WW1 he "raced Sunbeam motorcycles at Brooklands with Colin Grant", and participated in the Jarrow march before being drafted to Cheltenham during WW11 as "an engineer" at Dowty/Rotol.
My father-in-law used the name Robert McMurray from when he met and married Olive Williams in Cheltenham Glos in 1944 until his death on his supposedly 72nd birthday 15 Sept 1967.
I can find no record on the internet which closely match this man prior to the marriage in July 1944, and am intrigued by his previous 50 years.
The stories which he told to my wife and her siblings include:
His father "John" (supposedly of Robert, of John, etc) was a surveyor with "the Earl of Fife's Africa expedition", who died between the time of sending his wife "home" for her confinement and the time when the infant Robert could travel (presumably to rejoin John in Aftrica, or to go to bording school).
Mother was granted a "grace and favour" cottage just outside the gates to "the big house" in Banff which Robert referred to as Orchard Cottage (we have visited a building immediately outside the gates to Duff House) which closely matches the stories, but the owner has found no records of its occupation prior to his purchase from the estate).
Mother was reputed to be "a Gordon" who could wear the hunting tarten (plus sundry others which I can't accurately remember), whilst father John was a "Murray of Athol" (Robert always claimed that Mc meant "son of"; could it be that he was registerred and brought up under his mother's maiden name - hence my lack of search responses - if so then how to I proceed?).
The cottage inhabitants had "a cook and a pot boy", Robert was sent to "an accadamy" (whose name began with "H" but that is all I know); Robert "learned his golf at a little place down south called St Andrews"; he was apprenticed to an horologist; and supposedly joined the army in 1914 "under age" whence he contracted recurring malaria "whilst serving in Italy" (again, I have found no military records which appear to match him).
Aftr WW1 he "raced Sunbeam motorcycles at Brooklands with Colin Grant", and participated in the Jarrow march before being drafted to Cheltenham during WW11 as "an engineer" at Dowty/Rotol.