The ancestor I would like to meet

For the last several years I have joined in on the 52 Weeks 52 Ancestors writing prompts to get me to improve my writing in genealogy.  I will kill two birds with the proverbial stone and use it for today’s 500 words installment. This week’s prompt is to write about someone I would like to meet. 

There have been many interesting characters that I have stumbled across in building my family tree: the great-grandfather who ran off with his niece and started a new life in Canada only to abandon his new family there;  the maiden great-aunt who spent a lifetime as a nurse in the first half of the twentieth century;  the great uncle, a career military man, who shows up on the 1911 census with a daughter born in America that nobody in our family knows about; or the great grandfather, a potter who fell off a tram and whose inquest paved the way for transportation safety?  All probably have more colourful tales to tell but I suppose, like most genealogists, the one I would like to meet is my biggest brick wall, my 4x great grandfather William Turnbull.

Born probably around 1720 and most likely in Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders, little is known about him and his wife Mary Mein.  His name is carefully written in the family bible at the head of the page listing most of his children.  Only three of his children can be found in the Old Parish Records of Eccles and Kelso but his earlier children could have been born anywhere.  William is probably the most common Turnbull forename and his children William (???), John, James, Frances, and Jean can be found in the bible. Frances was baptised in Eccles and Jean in Kelso.  My three time great grandfather Robert was baptised in Kelso but the bible is damaged and his name doesn’t appear except in some later pages that were added in the late 19^th century. When Frances married in Edinburgh in 1779 she said her father was dead but had been a gardener in Eccles. 

Over the years I have chased other Turnbull families that were gardeners but have no definitive proof that they connect to my William.  I manage the Turnbull dna project and my father’s kit is now in with a group of Turnbulls who have a common ancestor who may have been born around 1250, a good 450 years before my William.  As more Turnbull men take the Big Y test we may see better connections and a later common ancestor might emerge.

If I could meet William I could ask him: 

• where were his earlier children born
• who his parents were and where did they live- some have speculated but there is no proof
• where was he born and when
• how he met and married Mary Mein – she appears to be connected to the Meins of Melrose
• when did he die and where
• what happened to the other children listed in the bible
• where was he a gardener – was he working at Floors Castle when he lived in Kelso
• did his son John emigrate to Australia – some have speculated that he was the first Turnbull in Australia and the ancestor of former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
• was he a Jacobite – if so it might explain why the older children were born elsewhere
• were his family Covenanters – they were prominent in the Borders and there is a history of nonconformity in the family
• was he a soldier – it could explain his older children being born elsewhere
• was he ever in London – there is a tenuous dna connection to some London Turnbulls

There are so many questions that are waiting to be asked. Until then I am stuck in Eccles, Berwickshire in the middle of the 18^th century wondering where this family came from and where they went.