Scottish 6th G Grandmother research help please

wendyparry1

My 6th G Grandmother was a Elizabeth Miscally b 1740 in Wigtown Scotland . Please could anyone help me to track her line down in Scotland as i have hit a brick wall here . I have limited info on the Ancestry website , i am not subscribed .. I really want to know more about Elizabeth if poss . I know her husband was William de rouffignac a french huguenot . They ended up living in Newlyn cornwall . So if anyone could help i appreciate this and thanks. The records go back so far that this is a problem .

Paul W

@wendyparry1

No direct help here, I'm afraid, but I found it interesting that in an "Exact" search on the surname MISCALLY, here in FamilySearch, 826 of the 846 results related to the United States. Out of the 43 pages of "results", I chose page 41 at random and there, out of a strange coincidence, was the link to the record of the Plymouth marriage (licence) relating to Elizabeth and William, which you reference above.

Not one example of the MISCALLY surname related to Scotland, and neither did I find any references to it on the ScotlandsPeople website. So, if you are certain Elizabeth was born there, her family do not appear to have Scottish origins, unless there is a variant surname they held: like MCCALLY, for example.

I assume you have a copy of the marriage bond copy, which is viewable at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-61FS-6ZB?view=index&personArk=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AQGY9-XN2D&action=view and are aware of Elizabeth's profile in Family Tree, reference LZR6-7LP, to which a father John Miscally has been attached. He is shown with an 1710 Stranraer, Wigtownshire birth, but without any source as evidence. I see Elizabeth's profile has sources attached relating to her marriage and baptisms of her children.

Getting back that "one step further back" is the usual aim of us all when we reach an apparent dead-end, so hopefully something will turn-up eventually, though I'm not sure where you are likely to find further clues.

(See also the page at https://www.familysearch.org/search/record/results?count=20&q.givenName=elizabeth&q.givenName.exact=on&q.surname=miscally&q.surname.exact=on )

wendyparry1

thanks Paul for all your help reg eliz 's surname . The only other varient surname i can think of is miskelly .So if you can offer any advice here i would be grateful and best wishes .

Paul W

Hi Wendy

I rechecked the ScotlandsPeople website and could only find one instance of the name spelt as MISSKELLY (yes, 2 'S's), but that did not match the Wigtown area. I have found a lot of difficulty in tracing my Scottish ancestors, as many events are not recorded in the Church of Scotland parish registers: mainly due to there being many smaller, Presbyterian "breakaway" congregations where baptisms / marriages took place, for which any recordings / registers have not survived. Some events even took place away from a church.

Sorry, but I do not know how you would proceed from here: I have long given up hope of finding the details of many of my own Scottish ancestors' birth / baptism, marriage or death / burial data.

wendyparry1

many thanks Paul for your continued support here , it has been great .. i will keep plodding on with the research . best wishes.

wendyparry1

hi Paul . sorry to disturb but i have some new updates reg my scottish ancestry . For a start i am thinking now that the surname i wasn't sure about has come up . So here goes it is Mcskellie . Plus i now know a 7th g g uncle John Milroy was a wigtown martyr and was hanged in the 1880s .. If you can find any origins for Mcskellie either scots or irish , i would be grateful thanks .

Paul W

Hi Wendy. I've made searches at ScotlandsPeople on McSkellie and variant spellings, including McSkelly, but there were no results for Wigtown itself. There are events relating to other places in the county (Wigtownshire), these relating mainly to the parishes of Kirkmaiden and Stoneykirk. The closest result for an ELISABETH birth is a 18 Feb1749 Stoneykirk register entry - parents Patrick McSkelly and Agnes Craig. As mentioned, Elizabeth's Family Tree profile has her father (without evidence) as John MISCALLY, born 1710 Stranraer, Wigtownshire. The closest match to that is a 3 Jun 1716 birth of a John MCKELVIE at Stranraer (father William McKelvie).

Unfortunately, I have no experience / ancestry relating to Ireland. There appear to be different ideas on the origins of the McSkellie surname, which you might wish to check out using a Google search.

Regarding John Milroy, the 1881 census has two individuals of this name at Whithorn, Wigtownshire (aged 33 &56) and two at Wigtown itself, aged 13 and 14, as well as others at Stoneykirk and Portpatrick.

I would suggest you register for access to the ScotlandsPeople website - see https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/, from where you can make searches for free and purchase "credits" for any items that might appear to relate to your research.

Sorry I am unable to help further, but England is my main country of research, with Scotland being the origin of just a couple of my family branches.

Paul

Paul W

BTW - I think you might be mistaken about John Milroy and the Wigtown martyrs - they were hanged in 1685, it appears, not the 1880s, as you suggest. I should have guessed there was a typo, in your references to your "7th g g uncle" and "martyrs"!

See https://www.wigtown-booktown.co.uk/wigtown-martyrs/

wendyparry1

thanks Paul for all your advice and info , it is most helpful and i will research further into all this . best wishes.