Robert Livingston Glassford Lanarkshire 1841 census

[tcanuck]

I have no Livingston connection except for one speculative one that I am having trouble finding additional info on. My paternal great great grandfather is unknown. He and Agnes Cumming fathered Robert Cumming in 1840 or perhaps 1841. My Cumming ancestors were tenant farmers at Cathkin, Carmunnock parish near Glasgow.

However for the 1841 census we find a *possible* entry for them in Glassford, Lanarkshire. The ages of 3 of the 4 Cummings matches exactly while one is off by about 10 years. The interesting thing is there is one more person in the household - 40 year old Robert Livingston agricultural laborer. Due to age rounding in the census he may have only been perhaps 36 years old.

The speculative theory is that he had relations with 19 or 20 year old Agnes Cumming there. The child's first name (Robert) matches and there aren't any Roberts in the Cumming line in the previous generations.

It is also interesting (and perhaps a red herring) that the Cathkin estate where the Cummings farmed at for at least a century was owned my Walter Ewing MacLae.

I have been unable to find any info on this Robert Livingston and wondered if anybody here would know.

FYI I have taken Y-DNA tests and the haplogroup is R-M222. I have no close matches as of yet. I have also done an autosomal DNA test but it is hard to determine matches.

Thank you.

Terry

[jmlivingstone]

I had a look for Robert in Scotlands People, found one birth in the period 1800-1802, unfortunately, I had no credit left, so could not check it further, might be worth your time having a look. Although, you may not be much wiser after looking, a lot of OPR's do not contain much information, some only the childs fathers name.

I could only find one other Robert born in the area, but birth date does not tally, it's from around 1825-26.

There is another Robert in the area, born Morvern, Argyllshire, again, I think he is too young to be the person you are interested in,

John.

[tcanuck]

Thanks for looking John. I did the same search at Scotland's People tonight and the two records for Lanarkshire are:

1 21/03/1802 LIVINGSTON ROBERT ARCHIBALD LIVINGSTON/JANET MCLEAN FR1024 CHILD 7 (FR1024) M BARONY GLASGOW CITY CITY/LANARK 622/00 0040 0237
2 14/05/1805 LIVINGSTONE ROBERT ROBERT LIVINGSTONE/AGNES COLQUHOUN FR596 (FR596) M EASTWOOD /LANARK 562/00 0030 0185

I can look a bit deeper on these.

Terry

[Canadian Livingstone]

Hi Terry and John,
I took a look at marriage records and I did not see any marriages between a Cummings or Cummins and a Charles Livingston. Have not found a birth or baptismal record either. So cant say if there is any family connection with the Cummings family. Perhaps he is a bachelor. A further problem is that I can't seem to locate him in later Census records in Scotland. It is not clear what became of him after 1841. He may have a boarder or fellow tenant residing with the Cummings, but whether there is any family connection, there is just not enough information to be certain.

regards,

Donald

[tcanuck]

Back at this after some new information steered me away from another avenue and back to here. I noticed recently from another forum post and then downloading the census record from Scotland's People that the Peter Livingston family in East Kilbride in the 1841 census had a Robert Livingston listed, aged 8 months.

That set off alarm bells, as that would be the age of Robert Cumming (8 months and 20 days old at the time of the 1841 census). My speculative theory, to rehash a bit, would be 40 year old Robert Livingston, shown in the census in nearby Glassford living in the same place as Agnes Cumming, would be the father of Robert Cumming. Speculating further, the child initially assumed the Livingston name and lived with relatives in near by East Kilbride (Peter Livingston family) and hence showed up on the census as thus. Presumably there would be a relationship between 40 year old Robert Livingston and Peter Livingston (as yet TBD).

We see a lot of the Peter Livingston offspring emigrated to Canada (Baden Ontario - noted by Castle Kilbride now) but there is no evidence that I've seen for a Robert Livingston joining them. This Robert does not show up in the 1851 census for EK (there is an entry for a slightly older Robert Livingston with implied birth of 1839 but I downloaded that 1851 census record and the family does appear to be different).

Thus so far my theory stands up. Of course, also plausibly, young Robert Livingston may have died as a child or possibly moved away at a relatively young age.

With all of this said, can anyone positively track the Robert Livingston 8 months old in the 1841 census?

Are there any living Livingston males from this line (in Ontario presumably)? If so, have they done YDNA tests? If not and one relative existed I would be willing to pay for a single SNP test which would economically prove or disprove my speculative theory. Note that currently I do not have any close Livingston YDNA matches (none above 25 STR markers).

Thank you.

[Canadian Livingstone]

Hi Terry,

It is an interesting theory but unfortunately very difficult to find the proof your looking for I regret to say. You did the right thing by doing the Y chromosome DNA to try and see if you are a match to any Livingstons that have already been tested match up with you. No one one connected to the the Baden Ontario Livingstons who came originally from Kilbride Parish in Lanarkshire, Scotland has done a Y chromosome DNA test to the best of my knowledge. They are sometimes mistaken as being related to Dr. Livingstone's family but there is no family information of the Blantyre, Lanarkshire family of Dr. Livingstone's being related to the Baden, Ontario (Kilbride Castle) Livingston family known for their 19th century successful flax business in Ontario.
I just recently did some research on an american family who rumour had it had some generations ago, adopted a Livingston into their family and as it turned out this old family story has I believe been finally proven true when a descendant did a Y chromosome DNA test several years now and was a close match with a family of highland Livingston who settled in the States in the early 1800's and lived in the same township. So yes you did the right thing to do the Y chromosome test to see if you are match with any of the Livingstons already tested. THere is or was always a chance that might provide some tangible proof that your ancestor was in fact the son of a Livingston if that was the case.

I regret that I am not too optimistic that you will find the kind of documentation you are looking or any sort of proof in the Scottish census records that can give you something significant to back your current theory about Robert. I hope however that I am wrong.

regards,

Donald

[tcanuck]

Thanks for the insights Donald. I agree, it will be hard to prove anything without great luck or a DNA test. As it appears from what you say that the Baden Livingstons have not done any YDNA tests then there is an avenue to explore potentially. If there are any suitable males in that line around I would offer to pay for an SNP test. If it matched me then further tests would be required but if it didn't match then that would pretty much prove my theory false.

Thanks again.

Terry