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Archiver > ABERDEEN > 2003-08 > 1060765481


From: Gavin Bell <>
Subject: Re:[ABERDEEN] Christina MCLEOD
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 10:04:41 +0100


Gordon wrote:

> I am looking for the right Christina McLeod. Her maiden name was
> McCulloch and she had a child with Alexander McLeod. The child was
> born in 1826 in Duffus, Moray and named Alexander McLeod. Christina
> McLeod was alive in 1855 when her son Alexander, now from Old Machar,
> Aberdeen was married in Kintore, Aberdeen.

I presume the list of "possibles" is from scotlandspeople? If so, the
first thing to try would be to search for Christina McCulloch, since
deaths are (in theory) indexed under both maiden and married name. I
say "in theory" because, like all information in Registers of Death, it
is dependent on the "Informant", and if the death was not registered by
a family member, then they may not have known. But if you find a C
McCulloch with the same info as a C McLeod, then you're getting warm.

If this draws a blank, I would be inclined to vary your search a bit.
The list of "hits" you have is heavily biased towards the west of
Scotland. Not surprising, you may say, given the surname McLeod. But I
would, by this date, have expected to find a few more in the east of the
country. Have you tried looking for "Christian" rather than
"Christina"? I have ploughed through a good many later 19th century
name-lists covering parts of eastern Scotland, and I can recall very few
"Christinas". On the other hand, "Christians" are relatively common.
Now, she may well have called herself "Christina", but if she died among
strangers in the Lowlands, they could have put her down as "Christian".
And some Registrars had a rather high-handed way of "regularising" names.

I don't know how the scotlandspeople index treats "Mc/Mac" names. Does
it automatically offer up all variants, or is it literal? If the
latter, it might be worth trying "MacLeod" or "M'Leod". That may not be
what she called herself, but as she was dead when the entry was made,
someone else may have decided how she should be spelt.


Gavin Bell


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