The Old Family
and how we got here
Margaret Simon, also known as Simons or Symons, is the mother of the mother of the mother of Alexander Old, my grandfather. We also know her own mother's mother's mother's mother's mother was Agnes Linne from Cramond. We can say this with confidence as there is no doubt who the mother of a child is even if sometimes there might be doubt on the father's side! This is also the longest line I have been able to trace with a fair degree of certainty and this is because her ancestry on the maternal side leads back to Corstorphine and Cramond where there are fewer wrong possibilities to sideline us.
Sadly she doesn't seem to have lived long as she has gone by the 1851 census. She was around in 1841 but by 1851 there is no trace of her and her younger children Janet and Alexandrina are living with an older married sister, Ann Ferguson, suggesting that she is either no longer alive or in no state to look after the family. She has certainly gone by 1861 when William McGregor is recorded as a widower. He was at sea in 1851 so there is no record for him to tell us whether or not he was "widowered".
It was no surprise that she married a sailor as her father had been a mariner as well although there is no detail about what type of work he did, whether fishing, ferrying or just merchant navy. Two of her sons were tobacco spinners, the only instance of this in our family history. They were also of interest as they appeared twice in the 1841 census, both at their mother's and granny's houses, making up for their father's absence.
To see the story of The Longest Line in the tree follow the link.