Frasers of Fife: Documenting the Family Tree - Continued

Back in April I began the tale of the mysterious Family Tree that appeared from behind my father's furnace. Rolled snugly in a mailing tube and tucked behind the furnace in the basement of his home. He thought it was the IRONS family tree, turned out to be the FRASER family tree. You can read part one here.

Anyway, I started to create a public family tree on Ancestry dot com - cousin bait - with the information inscribed upon the mysterious tree. As a rule I keep the Ancestry Member Tree Hints turned off, but I do like to manually check them from time to time. This was one of those times.

Glad I did!!!

Found a fully built Public Tree called the Frasers of Fife with all the exact same people as my tree!

Exact same!

Exact!

Of course I contacted the tree owner immediately. (His initials are A.F. - same as mine!) And learned rather quickly that he too had in his possession a framed, hand inked John Fraser 1880 family tree.

What?!?

He is located in the UK and was equally as thrilled to learn of another tree .... in the States no less! He promised to send photos the following weekend.

And he did.

My tree  on the left   ~   A.F.'s tree on the right

Same tree!!!

His has withstood the test of time better than mine (probably wasn't tucked behind a furnace) and we are able to share bits from one another's tree where the shellac has cracked. As expected, my Irons branch (the most important branch to me) is badly worn, his is pristine! I am now able to fill in a few missing parts.

A.F. suspects that there are other trees out there. I know of one other, but have not been able to contact the owner. I came across a post from 1999 by a "P. H." to RootsWeb. She had in her possession a Tree and was trying to make contact with other family members. As the post was soooooo old, the email address is no longer valid. She does have a profile on Ancestry, but I have been unsuccessful in making contact.

I will continue to add to my own public tree on Ancestry, and have also begun to document every person on the tree through short blog posts. Cousin Bait!

Here's to hoping I am successful at flushing out other Tree owners!


By the way, A.F. and I are 5th cousins, by his calculations ..... 

©2016 Anne Faulkner - AncestorArchaeology.net, All Rights Reserved

Frasers of Fife: The Beginning | Duncan Fraser and Isobel Burness

Duncan Fraser married Isobel Burness and the story began. The acorn from which the mighty Fraser tree sprouted, being planted about 1763.

1. Duncan Fraser, a native of Invernesshire, date and place of birth unknown, was out in the rebellion of 1745 in cause of Prince Charlie. In 1764 he seems to have been a Miller at Craighouse Mill, Saline, Fife and in 1773 he removed to Milldeans Mill, Leslie of which he was a tenant until his death.

Isobel Burns or Burness, his wife (tradition says that she was of the same stock as Burns the Poet) and from the Session Records at Drumlithie, Kincardineshire it is found that an Isobel Burness daughter of a Robert Burness was born June 21st 1748


Married about 1763 they had the following children:


2. i. Margaret Fraser born June 10th 1764, at Saline married John Gibb

    ii. Hugh Fraser born November 3rd 1765, at Saline, contracted to Elizabeth Arnot November 15th 1794 in Kinglassie, died about Dec 1794 - no issue

3. iii. William Fraser born July 24th 1767 married Agnes Bane

4. iv. John Fraser born September 23rd 1770 at Saline married Ann Johnstone

5. v. Alexander Fraser born November 15th 1775 at Milldeans, Kinglassie married Janet Lockart

6. vi. James Fraser born 1777 Kinglassie married Mary MacLaren

    vii. David Fraser born August 15th 1779 died in infancy

    viii. George Fraser born December 25th 1780 died at 18 months

    ix. Issabella Burns Fraser born  January 29th 1782 at Milldeans, died in infancy

    x. Janet Fraser born December 12th 1793, died January 29th 1797


Duncan died about 1795/6 at Milldeans Mill, Leslie
Isobel died January 15th 1805 at Leslie

~ all information provided here has been taken directly from the John Fraser family tree compiled in 1880 and as such is the only source for these writings - the objective being to record his work for further study and documentation ~ 

Isobel Burness: "Of The Same Stock As Burns The Poet" (52 Ancestors #6)

It all started with the death of my father and the discovery of a hand drawn Family Tree from 1880 that my mom found stuck behind the furnace. It was labeled IRONS FAMILY TREE in my dad's handwriting. It was rolled up in a mailing tube, cracked and brittle. I was afraid to unroll it.

Backtrack a few years. My dad was doing some research on his mother's side of the family, the Irons family, and had inherited a few bits of information from his uncle, who spent his retirement doing genealogy. We knew of the family cemetery plot in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, and one Saturday we all drove into the city to visit. I  immediately experienced a hushed sense of awe at the number of family members resting there. And an urgent need to discover who they were when they were alive.

Life got in the way and my desire waned. I put it aside to pursue other things.

Then my dad died. He was buried in the family plot in Graceland Cemetery surrounded by his ancestors. It was, still is, sobering. People, my people, who walked the streets of Chicago over 150 years ago. Who lived through the Great Fire. Who immigrated to America for a better life. Who were among the early pioneers of a tiny little frontier town called Chicago.

Out came the box filled with research he had been conducting (that I was not aware of) the letters from his uncle, stacks of old, old family photos. the Family Tree. My dad was an only child and a pack rat, so lucky for me he had everything his mother had saved from her family.

My curiosity was ignited anew.

Isobel Burness,who 

"Tradition said was of the same stock as that of Burns the Poet"

One afternoon, when curiosity got the best of me, I cautiously unrolled the Family Tree. It was not the Irons Family Tree at all - it was the Fraser Family tree dated 1880. The earliest entries were for Duncan Fraser and Isobel Burness, who "Tradition said was of the same stock as that of Burns the Poet". What? Who were these people? I needed to find out!

I dug in to try to discover who Isobel was. I started a public tree on Ancestry to do some fishing. I added her to WikiTree. I searched and searched to the best of my online ability. A trip to Scotland was not in my realm of possibility any time soon.

From the Family Tree I learned only a few key bits of information. Isobel Burness or Burns might have been born about 21 June 1748. She married Duncan Fraser in 1763 (was she really only 15?) and she died 15 Jan 1806 at Leslie, Scotland. She would have been 57 years old. The ONLY record I have been able to discover for myself is the baptism record noted on the Family Tree. It is still unclear 135 years later whether this is, in fact the correct Isobel.

So the mystery continues. Who was Isobel Burness or Burns? Was she "of the same stock" as the poet? Who were her parents? Did I and the author of this Tree find the correct baptism record? Did she really get married at 15? How did the Tree author conclude when Isobel died? And where? Where is her grave?

All my answers lie so far away. In both chronological time and physical distance. I hope to someday have more answers to this mysterious matriarch of my Fraser family branch.

And one more thing .... how did this mysterious Family Tree, authored in Scotland in 1880 by John Fraser, make it's way to America and wind up behind the furnace at my father's house?

I love a good mystery, don't you?