Williamina/Wilhilmina/Wilhelmina - A Rose By Any Other Name...

Wilhelmina Inkster Bruce/Campbell

In his play Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare penned, “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” It’s true that what matters is who a person is rather than what their name is...and in this case how their name is spelled or how it’s pronounced.

That being said, when it comes to how to spell Grandma Ella’s great grandmother's name, it’s something that keeps me up at night. After all, her name will be inscribed on her daughter’s granite memorial, Ursilla Katherine Bruce Beattie.(1) I want to get it right!

On 10 March 1835, a daughter was born out of wedlock to William Inkster and Margaret Graham. (Read more about her life here and here.) According to what Grandma Ella was taught, she was called “WILL-yum-INE-A,” but how might that have been spelled?

In researching this and trying to come to a conclusion on which spelling to adopt as “official,” here’s an overview of records I've found - parish, statutory, and family records - with different spellings of her name throughout her life:(2)

• Parish birth record for Williamina Inkster, 13 March 1835
• Census entry for Williamina Inkster, 1841, when she was still in her father William's household
• Bruce family register that mentions marriage of Robert and Wilhelmina, 1 May 1855
• Statutory birth register for Robert and Wilhilmina's son Robert, 6 July 1857
• Statutory birth register for Robert and Wilhilmina's daughter Ursilla, 20 Feb 1862
• Census entry for Wilhilmina, 1861
• Statutory marriage register for Wilhelmina and 2nd husband, Duncan Campbell, 24 Feb 1870
• Statutory birth register for Alexander Campbell, son of Wilhelmina from her 2nd husband, 25 Nov 1870
• Statutory death register for Wilhelmina, 28 Dec 1896
• A note from Gma Ella sent to me in 2014 that says she has always gone by the spelling Williamina
• A handwritten family group sheet from Grandma Ella’s mother, Ursilla Katherine Bruce Beattie Findlay (“Grandma Kate”) with the spelling as Wilhelmina. This is Grandma Kate’s grandmother whose name spelling we’re debating. Although Wilhelmina passed away before Grandma Kate was born, she was the closest person to her that we knew.

Now it’s true that perhaps even if her name was spelled as Wilhilmina or Wilhelmina, that it could have still been pronounced as “WILL-yum-INE-A.” Sometimes names are not necessarily pronounced phonetically, so we can’t always make an assumption about a name’s pronunciation from 180+ years ago.

And it’s true that sometimes in this bygone era, a person was not literate, so a registrar would make his best guess when recording that person’s name on an official document. And thus it’s hard to confirm one “official” spelling.

We could debate that her name should be spelled as Williamina, as it appears that that’s how her father had intended it. Or we could debate that it should be Wilhelmina, as many of the official records later in her life were spelled that way - perhaps that was the spelling that she adopted and used (assuming she was literate, or literate enough to spell her name later in her life).

Ultimately, we recognize that there is probably no “right” way to spell her name considering this time in history. And anyone versed in family history will know that spelling variations are common so when researching ancestors it’s a best practice to search on the spelling variations also.

But I still wish there were one, definitive, right way. ;)

……….

Sources and Notes:

1. More on finding the unmarked grave of Wilhelmina’s daughter, Ursilla Katherine Bruce Beattie, here (https://greatflyingscots.blogspot.com/2017/05/john-mcdonald-and-ursilla-katherine.html).
2. Most of these documents I found on ScotlandsPeople (https://scotlandspeople.gov.uk), though the Bruce family register is a copy that Grandma Ella shared with me - I’m not sure where the original is or who shared the copy with her. I’m in the process of posting documents to FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/), but if you’d like a copy of them in the meantime, send me an email and I can share them with you directly.

Wilhelmina Inkster Bruce/Campbell is Ella's great grandmother.

Aberdeen: Scot by Heritage, Strengthened by the Gospel

While recently researching family history details online, I ran across the following article about the LDS Church in Aberdeen, which was first published in the Ensign magazine (a monthly publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) in March 1990. 

This article features members of the Thompson family, some of the stalwart members of the Church in Aberdeen from the mid-1920s and on, and a family that the Findlays knew well - there were only a handful of members of the Church there, after all! (For reference: George and Kate Findlay first met the missionaries in 1930 and were baptized in 1932.)

Love this line from the article: “Ours is a proud heritage and a promising future." Indeed! 

See also: 

• George and Kate Findlay Meet the Mormons
• The Findlays and the Aberdeen Branch During the 1930s and 1940s

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Aberdeen: Scot by Heritage, Strengthened by the Gospel

By Leslie Smith

Known to local residents as the “Silver City by the Sea,” Aberdeen, Scotland, sits on a 33-mile stretch of North Sea coastline. It is known for its buildings made of the local silver-gray granite. Now the oil center of Europe, Aberdeen has come a long way from the ship-building, fishing, and granite industries for which it was formerly renowned.

Scotland is famous worldwide for its kilts, bagpipes, lochs (lakes), and its traditional meat dish, haggis. At the New Year, Latter-day Saints in Aberdeen join with the rest of their Scottish countrymen in festivities that include honoring the birthday of their national poet, Robert Burns. They celebrate “Burns Night” with poetry reading, singing, and participation in traditional highland dances. The celebrations would not be complete without Scotch broth, tatties (potatoes), neeps (turnips), and the haggis itself—brought in, traditionally, to the tune of the pipes and celebrated in song and poetry.

Aberdeen itself is quaint and beautiful, with well-maintained flower beds around the city. It has won the “Britain in Bloom” competition for so many years that the city had to withdraw from the contest for three years to give another community a chance!

Latter-day Saints in Aberdeen have made their own contribution to the beauty of the city. The Aberdeen Ward meetinghouse and its grounds have won twenty-six local awards in the category of best-kept church and community building. Ward members attribute this to the hard work and dedication of Brother Thomas Thomson, who has worked as custodian since the dedication of the chapel in 1967.

“We haven’t always had a beautiful chapel in which to meet,” recalls Georgina Thomson, the oldest member of the Church in Aberdeen (and no relation to the custodian). “I remember when the elders first met my husband in the marketplace in 1922. He brought them home with him. We were baptized four years later in the River Dee. There were only four members here then,” she says.

“There was nowhere for us to meet, so we met in each other’s homes and missionaries ran the branches. We had to wait nearly forty years for a temple in London so we could be sealed,” Sister Thomson says. “My husband was the branch president in Aberdeen when President David O. McKay dedicated the London Temple and subsequently made a visit to Scotland, the place his father had lived.”

The staunch devotion of Sister Thomson and her husband has been a model for their children. Their daughter was the first member from the area to serve a mission, laboring in England. Their son Stanley has served in many leadership capacities in the Church.

The gospel first came to Scotland in December 1839. From that time through the first fifty years of this century, membership in the Aberdeen area fluctuated because of emigration to America, Australia, and South Africa, and because of the two world wars. In recent years, though, growth has been significant.

When the plans for the first Church-built chapel in Aberdeen were developed several years ago, some of the thirty-four members in the city questioned the need for such a large parking area; only one family among them owned a car. But mission president Bernard P. Brockbank (now a General Authority Emeritus) told them they would see the day when the Saints in Aberdeen wouldn’t be able to get all their cars in it. That day has arrived. The stake now has more than 1,600 members.

The Aberdeen stake spans the width of Scotland. Dedication is required of members like Roddy and Phyllis Ross of Inverness, who must travel more than one hundred miles one way for stake meetings and conferences. When they go to the temple, it is a two-hour trip to the stake center, then twelve hours more to the temple. But despite the distance, Aberdeen Saints travel often to the temple, and some spend a week or more at a time there doing work for the dead.

Well-known Scottish storyteller Stanley Robertson lives in Aberdeen. He joined the Church in 1965 and has since brought thirty members of his extended family into the Church. He is known at home and abroad for his books, ballads, and songs. But “I couldn’t have done anything without the Church,” he says. “The first time I sang was at a Relief Society party, and now I travel the world singing my songs.”

Brother Robertson’s prominence has been an asset in his current calling as stake public communications director, as he has done much to promote the image of the Church in his native land.

Public attention can be very important. Generally Latter-day Saints are not well known in Aberdeen, explains stake president James Rae Dressel. It is important that other Scots come to know them and the quality of their lives.

The gospel is crucial to the quality of Scottish Saints’ lives, says President Dressel’s wife, Patricia. “Emphasis on family unity has given us a goal to work toward as we counsel and teach the principles to our children. We know the gospel will carry them through their lives,” she says. And personally, she adds, the gospel “enables me to do things I would never have the courage to do otherwise.”

The hardy Saints of Aberdeen stand out as Scots, President Dressel says, and they are consistently gaining in spiritual strength through membership in the Church. “Ours is a proud heritage and a promising future.”

Correspondent: Leslie Smith, assistant press officer for the Church in the British Isles.

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Source: Smith, Leslie. (1990, March). Aberdeen: Scot by Heritage, Strengthened by the Gospel. Ensign. Retrieved from https://www.lds.org/ensign/1990/03/news-of-the-church/aberdeen-scot-by-heritage-strengthened-by-the-gospel?lang=eng. Accessed 16 January 2018.

New Year’s Eve for George and Kate Findlay and Family

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A winter holiday tradition that Ella remembers as a child in Aberdeen is that of “first-fittin” - a custom associated with Hogmanay (the Scot’s New Year’s celebration) that commemorates the first person to enter a home on New Year’s Day, believing them to bring good luck to the household in the coming year.

Celebrating Hogmanay with its associated traditions (including first fittin) was the major winter holiday in Scotland (rather than Christmas) up until about the 1950s, a trend that dated back to the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century when Christmas was viewed as being too Papist.
Still commonly celebrated today, the first foot typically brings several symbolic gifts: a coin (representing financial prosperity), bread (food), salt (flavour), coal (warmth), evergreen (long-life), and/or a drink (usually whisky; good cheer).

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And it’s supposedly especially lucky if the first foot is a tall, dark-haired male. Why? There’s a theory that this goes back to viking times, when if a blond male with an axe appeared on your doorstep, that would definitely be bad luck! Thus the opposite being a dark-haired male would definitely be a welcomed sight.

Ella recalls that her family would often go visit a family friend for first-fittin, a Mr. Ross, whom her parents had known for years. This elderly gentleman lived on the other side of Aberdeen from them, and as the Findlay family didn’t own a car and the trams and buses weren’t running (Because of the holiday? Or the late hour?), they would walk clear down Holburn Street, way down Union Street, and beyond, late at night. He lived quite a distance! Ella’s mother Kate would prepare goodies to share and they enjoyed visiting with this long-time friend. And then sometime in the early hours of the morning on New Year’s Day, they’d make that long walk back home.

Was Ella’s father George the tall, dark-haired male bringing good fortune? Maybe? Ella describes his hair color as being “mid brown,” and she doesn’t remember much fuss being made about him being the first foot. But nevertheless, they all enjoyed the opportunity to get together and have fun with family and friends.

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Sources: 

• A conversation with Ella recorded on 8 July 2016
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-foot
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogmanay