Several Finlay MacIntoshes

The pool of personal or given names in common use in the nineteenth century was somewhat smaller than it is today, or at least somewhat more skewed towards a small number of exceedingly common names. Furthermore, which names were common seemed to depend on exactly what national background your family came from. Among the Scots immigrants I've studied, there is considerable reuse of a small pool of names even within groups of first cousins. Names such as John (of course), Donald, Finlay, David and Angus occur again and again for men; Flora, Elizabeth, Margaret, Ann, and Euphemia for women -- each, of course, in numerous contractions and variations. (Betsey, Bessie, Maggie, Annie, Effie, ...)

This constitutes a challenge for the genealogist. Which of several identically-named people does a particular piece of documentary evidence refer to? Coupled with random spelling variations, erroneous or approximate ages, and the various other vagaries of 150-year old records, it is sometimes difficult even to establish how many individuals there bearing the same name in your records.

As an example, here are a number of different references to Finlay (or Finley) MacIntosh (or McIntosh), roughly in chronological order. How many different people are represented?

1. Finlay son of John, per Deedie's account (1st generation)
2. Finlay, petitioner for land in Wellington parish in 1819, age 46
3. Finlay, a young man dead at Buctouche, father of two infants, only son of "aged" parents, per article in New Brunswick Courier, 21 Nov 1829
4. Finlay son of David, per Deedie's account (2nd generation), born 1831 per Jack Harper, married Elizabeth Fowlie per Deedie
5. Finlay father of Euphemia wife of Donald McBeath 1833
6. Finlay son of Norman, per Deedie's account (2nd generation)
7. Finlay, mentioned in deed transfer between John A. McIntosh and Donald McIntosh, 1846: "...bounded on the East by lands of Finlay McIntosh...on the North by lands owned by the said Donald McIntosh conveyed to the lots of Finlay McIntosh deceased..."
8. Finlay, selling land to Robt. B. Cutler, 1847
9. Finley, age 88, widower and lodger in Andrew McIntosh's household in 1861 Wellington census
10. Finley son of Norman, age 27 in 1861 Wellington census
11. Finley son of Kenneth, age 12 in 1861 Wellington census
12. Finley Andrew son of Andrew, age 7 in 1861 Wellington census
13. Finlay, a farmer at Black River in Hutchinson's Directory of 1865-66
14. Finlay, died at Black River near Buctouche, 13 March 1867 at age 96, per article in Morning News, 18 March 1867
15. Finley (age 36) husband of Margaret (age 34?) in 1871 Wellington census, children Margaret, Norman, Flora
16. Finley son of Kenneth, age 21 in 1871 Wellington census
17. Finly, age 34 in 1871 Weldford census, living with widow Mary (age 54) & William, Alexander, John, Archibald
18. Finlay, a farmer at Black River in Lovell's Directory of 1871
19. Finly (age 46) husband of Margaret (age 53?) in 1881 Weldford census, children Margaret, Norman, Flora, James
20. Finly, age 42 in 1881 Weldford census, living with widow Mary (age 67) & John
21. Finley, age 35 in 1881 Richibucto census, wife Jane (30), children Mary Ann, John, Jane
22. Finlay husband of Mary Jane Scott, registers births of children Margaret-Ann, Janet, Fred, Ida, Donald in Galloway 1876-1890
23. Finlay, age 41 in 1891 Wellington census, husband of Jane, father of Margaret-Anne, James, Mary, Janet, Fred, Mable, Ida, "Dold"
24. Finlay husband of Margaret, Margaret buried Galloway cemetery 1900 age 72
25. Finlay, buried in Buctouche Cemetery 1847-1913, wife Mary Jane Scott
26. Finlay, buried Emporium, Pennsylvania, 1835-1915
27. Finlay, died 04 Dec 1913 in St-Pierre-de-Kent, age 64, born St-Anne-de-Kent.

There are clearly at least four individuals here, because there are four different Finlays in one source, the 1861 census of Wellington parish. How many more? Hard to say. Let's try the following hypotheses:

• Finlay, son of John, b.1773
• 1st generation in Deedie's account
• petitioned for land 1819
• dau. married 1833
• lodging in 1861 with Andrew McIntosh
• died 1867
• Finlay, a young father in Buctouche, died 1829
• Finlay son of David, born 1831, married Elizabeth Fowlie, left the area and/or died shortly thereafter?
• Finlay son of Norman, b.1834/35,
• married Margaret between 1861 and 1871,
• resided Wellington parish 1861-71, Weldford 1881
• Margaret buried 1900 in Buctouche
• Finlay buried 1915 in Pennsylvania
• Finlay son(?) of Mary, b.1837/39, resided Weldford parish 1871-1881
• Finlay son of Kenneth, b.1849/50,
• married Mary Jane Scott between 1871 and 1876
• in Richibucto parish in 1881?
• buried 1913 in Buctouche
• Finley Andrew son of Andrew, b.1854, NFI

This seems a minimal set of individuals to cover the available evidence, but even so there is one exception. The 1846 land transfer which mentions "Finlay McIntosh deceased" is troublesome. It seems unlikely that this would refer to the young man who perished seventeen years earlier in 1829, so we may need another Finlay to account for this piece of evidence, but nothing else seems to match.

Furthermore, to say that we don't need more than seven or eight Finlays is not the same as proving that there are only seven or eight represented in the data.

Back to The MacIntoshes of Black River.
This page was last updated 2003 April 8.