I’m revisiting an old entry today. That entry is the one from September titled, Menzies News. In that entry I examined a census record that I thought might be William Menzies in 1861. This is important to me because only a few of the Menzies siblings stayed behind in England. William strikes a cord with me because in a letter to his sister he wrote, “I am quite sure I will never stay in England all my life as I am quite tired of it.” I can’t help but wonder if he ever made it.
In the entry, I also mention that I found a marriage record for William Menzies and Ellen Patterson. The only problem was I couldn’t be sure that was my William. The index on familysearch.org only had the name of the groom’s father listed. With such common names like John and William, and no other clues, I couldn’t be sure if this was in fact my William Menzies.
That all changed yesterday. You see on April 19th, Ancestry.com added a huge number of Liverpool, Lancashire, England Church Records. This includes baptisms, christenings, marriages, and burials. I was fortunate enough to find the marriage record that I questioned so many months ago.
Having indexed a lot of English Parish Records for Family Search, I knew that the marriage records also had occupation of the father as an entry on the certificate. So when I found the marriage in the index, I didn’t just throw it out. I made a notation of the indexed information for coming back to later. Now I am 100% positive that this is my William Menzies. John Menzies was a Sawyer by trade in 1841 and 1851. Therefore I know it is him. Also serving as witness to the marriage is Helen Scott, or how I know her Helen Menzies-Scott. I found her marriage record too by the way (with sister Margaret serving as witness)!
New information that comes with this record is Williams occupation as a dentist. As a refresher, two of his siblings were druggists/pharmacists. This is important because the William Menzies I found in the 1861 England census had an occupation of Mechanical Dentist. At the time, I realized for this family a dentist isn’t out of the ordinary. Most of the people I see are laborers and farmers. So when I found a family full of druggists, a dentist doesn’t seem to be such a stretch.
I still don’t know where William’s wife is during this census but I’m almost sure she is still alive. I’m going to try looking for her elsewhere, but we’ll just have to see what comes up.
When I plugged William Menzies and Ellen Patterson into Family Search, it brought up two more possible children. One, George Menzies, who served in the Spanish American War and died in Minnesota, and Arthur who lived in Boston. I haven’t linked either one of these through Derby baptismal and birth records yet. It’s on my To Do List though! Their birthplaces and dates fit exactly. I just have to get the paper evidence to back it up.
Now I’m off to find more!
