John Samuel

John Samuel is Elder Samuel's father.  There were two of the same name around that period, probably related, but this one is a sensible age for raising a family.  The other was 19 at Elder's birth but since she had a sister six years older we can discount him.  There is evidence to suggest that although the Samuels were in Corstorphine parish they lived in Broomhouse farm to the south of the village and in the spot where the original Forrester High School was built.  Interestingly there was a loch nearby, which is drained now but which would have meant that the ground around this area could have been quite boggy but good agricultural land when drained.  Corstorphine was built on the dry land between two lochs back in history and the now-vanished castle guarded this passageway as this less than accurate Bleau map from 1654 shows.  Broomhouse has shifted to the east.

 

There are several excellent books written by Miss A.S. Cowper which detail the local history of Corstorphine and several Samuels are mentioned as tradesmen who helped restore the local church.  Most of them were masons and a look at the gravestones around the church reveals that the trade carried on over the generations.  In fact, when I was searching 1871 census records for the Mackay side, in the same tenement block I came across a George Samuel mason from Corstorphine and immediately knew this was a twig of my tree.

Elder Samuel's marriage record gives her father as John Samuel mason in Corstorphine and this is confirmed in her death record.  As mentioned earlier there was more than one John Samuel in Corstorphine but it must be the one born to John Samuel, servant in Broomhouse, and Margaret Mason (how appropriate).  A servant could have been a farm servant or even the man who built and repaired walls, who knows?  Tracing further back is just guesswork with gaps in the Corstorphine records and various options in nearby parishes.