The Old Family
and how we got here
Mary Finlayson was the father of Allan Old the miner and wife of Allan Old the baker. Her family history is fairly straightforward from the point where she married Allan and settled in Roslin Glen but there is a bit of mystery before that. In the records she is sometimes noted as born in Loanhead and sometimes in Lasswade but that isn't a problem as Loanhead is in the parish of Lasswade. What is a problem is locating that birth.
Her birth is documented in various indexes but a search of the actual records couldn't locate it. According to search indexes the birth is recorded to John Finlayson and Mary Kidd, the correct parents according to Mary's marriage and death records, in 1835, but her parents didn't marry until 1841 when they started having other children. There is no doubt Mary was illegitimate. Eventually I located the record in a page of retrospective entries, one previous entry as late as 1854, making it nearly twenty years after the birth.
That's not all. In the first census after their marriage her parents are living alone with no child. No Mary Kidd or Mary Finlayson could be found of that age in the wider area. However, I became suspicious of a five year old Margaret Finlayson living with John's parents. They were in their fities and only one child remained at home. Also, all other Margaret Finlaysons born around 1835 could be accounted for with their families. My assertion is that Margaret Finlayson is the missing Mary Finlayson or Kidd, hidden away with her grandparents as a face-saving exercise. There is no indication of the older Mary Kidd's own parents still being around as they were much older so possibly John's parents were the obvious choice but I'm not convinced that the child is her husband John's.
A registration twenty years late of a child born six years before marriage doesn't fill me with confidence in its veracity. John may indeed have been the father and at 19 to Mary's 21 been a bit young to commit to marriage but would they have waited another six years to marry whilst still being together yet not adding to the family? My instinct is to doubt it and therefore I'm not totally convinced about following John's tree further back. I've left it as documented in the official records but would say that I'm not confident that this is my blood line.
Finlayson is also spelt Findlayson and Finlison in the records.