Wednesday 11 April 2012

The Philadelphia Story

Some distant relations on my husband's side left Scotland for a new life in Philadelphia.

A lady over there contacted me via ancestry to ask about another member of the family who also fetched up in Pennsylvania. Her name was Isabella Wardrope and I found her birth in Falkirk in 1872. It seems she met her future husband on a sea crossing from the USA back to Glasgow as she was going to visit her mother who was sick. Her future husband Matthew Wilson was returning with his young son George aged about 4 after his wife had died of influenza. The family story is they met on the boat and she helped Matthew with the boy.
I hunted and hunted to find them both on the same boat. I could see them on separate boats but needed to find them on the same crossing to substantiate the family story.
Meanwhile I found both of Matthew's marriages and the 1900 census has the first family. He married Isabella or Bella in 1905 so probably looking for a voyage about 1901 as the son was born in 1895. I had already found Bella returning to USA in 1901 so eventually pared the search down to Isabella Wardrope going from New York to Glasgow in 1901.

Here is the record of the City of Rome arriving Glasgow July 1901 and look whose names are below.


Isabella is 10 years younger than her birthdate and it's Martha not Matthew. No wonder I they were hard to find!

The lady in the US did not know that her grandmother had a sister nearby. Her 98 year old father (Matthew and Isabella's son) is still alive so he will be pleased to learn all this.