Helen Cummings was the wife of William Thomson and is related to me through one of their children, Robert Thomson. She is my great great grandmother as follows. Robert Thomson married Isabella Taylor and had a daughter, Isabella Thomson, later Blake. Isabella Blake was my grandmother. Much of Helen's history is well documented as in her marriage to William Thomson on 11 December 1851 in the parish of New Deer, Aberdeenshire. She can be found in several of the census records starting with the 1861 and moving on through 1881. The problem arises when one tries to tie down where, when, and to whom she was born. There are a number of discrepancies.
Although Helen claims to have been born in "Old Pitsligo" no record exists of that birth. Her husband outlived her and indicated as the "informant to death" when Helen died on 28 August 1889 that her father's name was Alexander Cumming and that her mother's surname was Urquhart. Her age at death was 66 which implies a birth date of 1823. In two of the early census records Helen gives ages which lead to a birth date of 1826. If one tracks down Helen Cummings born in that year one finds a Helen Cumming born to Alexander Cumming and Ann Watson in Foveran, Aberdeen, nowhere near Pitsligo.
If we keep searching we find a marriage for Alexander Cumine who married a Jean Urquhart on May 22, 1823 in Pitsligo. This same Jean Urquhart later appears in the records marrying James Paton on October 4, 1825 in Fraserburgh which is just east of Pitsligo by about 15 miles. This marriage was recorded a second time on October 23, 1825 in Old Deer, the birthplace of James 19 years earlier. Now, it turns out that Jean was very pregnant when she married James as their first child was born on November 4, 1825. So, the mystery deepens. What happened to Alexander Cummings? Did he runoff? Did he die not long after the birth of Helen then start another child before his passing? Did James come along at a convenient time in Jean's life and marry her just before she had Alexander's second child?
Some additional things we know is that Jean went on to have ten additional children for a total of twelve and eleven of the twelve occurred in Old Deer and were recorded in the church records. So, once married Jean seems to have been a dutiful wife, not one who would have married and moved on within a year of her marriage to Alexander. Something interrupted that first marriage.
The 1841 census, the earliest currently available for Scotland, shows a Helen Cumming living on Shorestreet in Fraserburgh with a William Walker family. The Walkers were innkeepers and Helen is noted as a 15 year-old young lady working as a F.S. or family servant. It certainly would have helped to have a census for 1831 but we don't. Anyway, ten years later Helen appears in the 1851 census for New Deer working as a house servant and living with the John Ketterwick family at Mill of Auchnagat. Her age was given as 24. That same family had a journeyman miller working for them named William Thomson. William said he was 25. We now know how it was that later that year on November 11, William and Helen came to be married. They were working for the same employer. John Ketterwick was one of the witnesses. Helen's stated age of 24 would imply that she was born in 1827, four years after Alexander Cumming and Jean Urquhart married and two years after Jean married James Paton. She might have given that age at that time so as not to appear older than William. This seems credible as by the 1881 census she says she is 56, implying a birth date of 1825.
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