YOU'VE GOT TO ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS!

This is me doing a cautiously excited happy dance!

If you know me moderately well, you know that I’m kind of a stickler for accuracy when it comes to dates, places, and relationships in my genealogy. So even though I’m doing an excited, happy dance . . . it’s still cautious.

Andrew Turnbull and Janet Little have been a bit of a puzzle to me for many years. We know they are the parents of Mary Turnbull who married Walter Riddell and was my great, great grandmother. Andrew and Janet were married in Langholm, Dumfries, Scotland – we have that record – and we have records of their six children being born in Langholm. And then – nothing –  until they turn up in the 1841 census in Hawick – most of them married, working in the textile industry as weavers and spinners. The parents, Andrew and Janet, have disappeared, I have assumed they died.

People die or disappear – there’s nothing odd about that – but if they’re going to move around, I want to know why! So a big part of the puzzle, for me, has been: Why did they leave Langholm where their father was a mason, (a man with a trade which would make him a respected member of the community) and end up in Hawick as poorly paid weavers?

Well . . . I think I may have found some answers. There are several parts to the answers. The first question, “Why did the Turnbull family end up in Hawick?”, is actually the wrong question. It should have been, “What was Andrew Turnbull doing in Langholm?” When I tried to explain the whole complicated thing to my kids, they just looked baffled, so I’ll have to get my thoughts in order. It may take me a couple of days . . . .