Janet 'whaur are ye'?

Janet McRae is missing - is that even her real name!

Janet is the mother of Robert Buchan who arrived in Australia in 1852. She is named on his marriage and death certificates in Australia, but I can not find her in Scotland. 

In May I will travel to Edinburgh to do 'local' research into the Buchans and Janet. This elusive ancestor of the Australian Buchans is relevant mostly to her descendants, but the strategy to 'find' her is the same as for any missing ancestor.

The task will use DNA + Documentary records + TIME. I began this research in March 2022, during the Skills course of YourDNAGuide run by Diahan Southard. So it is already taking time. Because, to my knowledge, Janet's son Robert is her only child, the DNA for the research must come from Australian Buchans only.

The story so far....

I believe that Janet McCray is the name listed as his mother on Robert Buchan’s marriage certificate of 1860, see image below. His father is listed as Robert Buchan. DNA analysis has proved that Robert senior is the son of George Buchan and Jean Johnston of Borthwick, Midlothian. Robert senior was born in 1813. [65 non-Australian DNA matches confirm this to be true].  The same name appears on Robert junior's death certificate, also below.

I could not find a marriage between Robert Buchan and Janet McCray in Scotland from 1830-1836. Nor could I find a baptism for their son Robert. By his marriage certificate and death certificate and shipping records, he was born between 1833-1835 in Edinburgh, although Midlothian was called 'Edinburghshire' at this time. 

I searched on ScotlandsPeople and FamilySearch, but not Wikitree. I used Jane* and Robert alone as search terms, Buchan only and on McRae/McCrae/M*Ra*, and then I did "Jean/Jeanette/Jenny" and even "J*". I also searched for a mother Jane* (and J*) and child Robert with any surname in Midlothian. Many existing Ancestry trees have latched onto a woman from Ross and Cromarty with no sources for doing so. She was born in 1790 in Aberdeen and died in 1853!  None of these facts, being in Aberdeenshire, being 23 years older than 19-year-old Robert senior, and being still alive when Robert senior married in 1846, suggest that she is the correct woman. 

Robert Buchan is recorded as being from Edinburgh on both the 1841 and 1851 censuses. On the 1841 census, Robert senior and junior are found in Newlandrig, Borthwick without any other children younger than Robert junior, nor a wife for Robert senior. They are living with Robert senior's widowed mother, and several of his siblings. Robert junior is the only child. On the 1851 census he is no longer living with his father who has recently married. He is still living with his grandmother and other relatives in Newlandrig. However this census reports that he was born in Edinburgh while all the seven other people (except one) are said to be born in Borthwick. The exception was a first cousin who is correctly documented to be born in Dalkeith.  On his probable shipping record in 1852, he was a 19-year-old ‘moulder’ from Scotland.

Question 1 - is Janet McCray (and all the possible variants) the likely name of his mother based on the Robert junior's MC and DC?

MC September 1860 ‘Birth Place’ Edinburgh, Parents Robert Buchan and Janet McCray, aged 25.

DC June 1882 ‘Where Born’ Edinburgh, Scotland; married at 25

In summary, Janet McCray was probably married to Robert Buchan although if she died, and Robert took over care of his son, it is possible that the son adopted this surname. It was often the case that Scottish brides were 2-3 years older than their husbands in earlier centuries. One 'explanation' for this practice was that women could get more control over their younger husbands from early on in the marriage, lessening the chances of domestic violence. [Suggested by one of my Scottish female contributors]. So if Robert was born about 1813, and was about 20 years old when his son Robert was born, then Janet might be born between 1805-1815. 

Does the fact that Robert did not name his first son after his own father George, as was customary, suggest that Robert and Janet were not married? He later named the first son with his wife Margaret Ireland, George, in 1848.

Q2. How many possible candidates are there to be 'our' Janet? 

There are 23 Janet McRae’s born between 1800-1820 in all of Scotland.

I found 10 girls called something similar to Jane McRae in the Edinburgh region and tried to follow them through as possible candidates. Some died, married or moved to UK. In particular, one family moved to Oxfordshire, where a DNA match had an unknown parent slot. Although the Janet in this family married in Midlothian, the DNA must have travelled to Oxfordshire in an earlier generation for the low cM value.

Is unlikely that McCray is the spelling of her name. There are only 10 people named McCray born between 1750 and 1855 in all of Scotland. There are only 35 people named McRay born between 1750 and 1855 in all of Scotland.

However, there are 3050 people named McRae born between 1750 and 1854 in all of Scotland. The majority of them are from Inverness-shire and Ross & Cromarty, both 'highland' counties. Robert junior would later marry a woman from the highlands in Melbourne, Australia. The numbers of people baptised with the surname M*rae between 1750 and 1854 in the various counties are: 89 in Midlothian, 121 in Lanarkshire, 645 in Inverness, 1,723 in R&C, 24 in Nairn, 0 in East Lothian and West Lothian, 16 in Fife, 15 in Moray, 25 in Argyll, 73 in Sutherland, 31 in Perthshire, and 25 in Caithness. So there are relatively few McRae's born in the counties around Midlothian.

Of the Janet’s born 1800-1820 (total 23), only three were not born in the Highlands, to parents:

·        David McRae and Rachel Millar 20 June 1806, Edinburgh

·        John McRae and Barbara Rose 17 June 1810, Edinburgh

·        Alexander McRae and Janet McGill 29 June 1811, Kilmarnock (West Ayreshire)

 In 2024 - I learned of the variant McCree

The DNA investigation

1. Isolate non-Buchan matches

Janet’s DNA is only to be found in descendants of Robert Buchan and Margaret Bain in Australia, since we have no known other children of Janet McRae.

I have now found 49 descendants of this couple who have taken a DNA  test. I have DNA results for two of their great-grandchildren (Pat G and Kath J). Pat G is my father’s 1C, so she is my 1C1R (older) and Kath J is my 2C1R (older). I also have DNA results for myself, my sister, two brothers, my 1C1R (younger) and a 3C – covering three of the six children of Robert and Margaret who had descendants. (I will try to get access to the other three lines). In the following chart a notation of "6, 1 match' means 6 children born in that generation and that only one has tested and is a match.

Pat and Kath are 2Cs. The other 2C match has passed away.

Janet McRae is my x3 Great Grandmother, so cousins who would have DNA of her parents are either going to be my 4C (descendants of her siblings), and if she had no siblings, 5C (descendants of her grandparents). I was lucky to find my 4Cs and 5Cs in the Buchan study, so I am hopeful that they exist for the McRae side too.

4Cs have an average of 35cM, so I looked for matches at this level who were not also matching a Scottish Buchan (ie a descendant of siblings of Robert b1813.) I have looked so far in Pat G, Kath J, Vicki A, myself and my siblings.

This approach could fail if Janet has no siblings, and perhaps her parents had no siblings either. Child mortality was high, so it is not impossible that the connection to our matches might be quite further back.

2. Bottoms Up to find genetic networks

The technique to find unknown families (ie a McRae family and an unknown family being Janet's mother's family) is called Bottoms Up. See an introduction to this technique in the post  Bottoms Up!  From within all the match lists, excluding all recognised Buchan matches, is a group of unrecognised people who MUST relate to the McRaes. At this time, I have identified five mutually exclusive groups, which I will call Clusters A, B, C, D and E.

These five clusters who share mostly just one piece of DNA are representing Janet's ancestral lines, but which ones? The next task is to look at each cluster separately to determine which ancestors they have in common. Although I have had some minor success I am still some way off identifying a common ancestral family for any of the clusters.

The size of the clusters seems adequate to finding a common ancestor for them. Cluster A – 34 people (highest 26cM); Cluster B – 16 people (highest 47cM); Cluster C – 7 people (highest 38cM); Cluster D  – 15 people (highest 56cM) and Cluster E  – 38 (highest 28cM). These figures will increase after I have checked Shelley’s excel match list that extends lower to 15cM, and when I look at MyHeritage and FTDNA and Gedmatch and, why not, 23andMe.

This network chart is from ‘dnaconnected’ (by Shelley Crawford) from 2020 which shows members of Cluster A in pink. The big green dot is Kath J, one of the two great-grandchildren of Janet McRae.

I have tried to expand the pedigrees of all the matches who provide trees in each cluster. Methodically I compare all pedigrees for common names and/or locations. Within many match's trees, often only a portion of their pedigree originates in Scotland. I have four pairs of matches in Cluster A but none of these pairs relate to each other (at least not yet). The pairs are close relationships, siblings, niece/uncle and first cousins, so this has not helped connect them further back in time.  By sharing DNA they must 'connect up' somewhere. 

I found my first McRae direct ancestor of any match in February 2024. A Janet McCrae or McCree in Fife, married to Joseph Dryburgh, is an ancestor for new match Toby in Cluster A below. The woman was buried under the name McRae though so it is best to not be too focused on a single spelling. McCree was a variant* I had not seen before. There is a Jane McCree born 1810 in Edinburgh, and overall just 123 in all of Scotland between 1666 and 1855. However there is no marriage or burial information appropriate to a woman who had a child about 1833-5 in those lists. 

A new 2024 match brings a glimmer of hope!

Another new match has thrown me some hope. Johanna PSu, although under 20cM to Pat, is a second cousin to Ruth Ch and Julie Pa. Their shared ancestors are Matthew Paterson b1829 and Ann McKenzie b1828 in Lanarkshire, and not far in location from another pair of matches.  Paterson is the eighth most common surname in Scotland, and McKenzie might not be far behind on that league table. 

Johanna only had 15 people in her tree, but they were the right 15 to connect to another match. Small trees can often give you the breakthrough. This will likely take the next six months of my life.

See an 2024 update to this search

Newbattle Churchyard, looking towards Section 7 where the Buchans are buried

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Cluster Details

I have listed all the match names in each cluster, and also whether they have a tree at all on Ancestry and if they do, how big it is, to get a sense of the difficulty of this task. However, note the following lists are more for my reference.

Cluster 1             [name (Tree#, with U=Unlinked and P=Private) and any notes]

Michelle Ba (?Aust due to high cM value) (0)

Toby Hu  I found that his x4 GGM was Janet McCree/McRae m Joseph Dryburgh in Fife 1798; her parents unknown.

Ruth Ch (28)

Julie Pa (U4) is the sister of Ruth Ch

Barb Da (21) is the cousin of udd below

Janet Sa (11) is the niece of cbmu1

cbmu1 (279)

Susananne46 (5000)

Christopher Pa (0)

Teresa Hu (34)

Udd (11)

C.B. (dodgson33) (U14) all Newcastle on Tyne

Edward Wi (0)

Donna Ro (U7) is the sister of Edward Wi

Lara B De (7)                   

People below this line are under 20cM, 

Neddiemob (JM) (668)

Jason Mi (409)

James Wi (0)

X.L. (Pat Li) (0)

Rusty Gr (0)

Marilyn Di (0)

Geoff Jo (1)

L.H. (Amy Ga) (1,271)

Johanna P Su (15)

Autumn Bu (PU)

James Fa (0)

Judith Wi (0)

Marcos Ni (18)

James Je (0)

Margy128 (2)

Robyn Ma (0)

Matthew Pa (1)

austin ch (5)

Louise Th (307)

dawn Mc (0)

 

 Cluster 2

Raymond Ma

Sean We (also Bain so likely to be Australian)

Caitlyn Hu

Gary Ga

Robin Ga (4)

jbosk (310)

E.B. (jbosk)

P.B. (Richard Bo) (5)

Panuma14

Barbara Ga (111)

Patricia Ta

Susan Ta

  

Cluster 3

Kennymcd75 (0)

Rob En (185)

Kathleen Co (53)

KateSHa (P50,000) – the following are 2 siblings and a daughter

R.W (KateSHa) (P50,000)

Bixdizzy (KateSHa) (P50,000)

Liane Haushalter (KateSHa) (P50,000)

Cluster 4

Donald George Wa (13)

Mooptheloop (0)

Paul Sy (0)

Mason Ma (48)

KarinMB (U2&3, Fin, Metz)

A.W. (tracey510868) (U4, Adcock)

Amy Wi (35)

Kischa Sm (0)

Donald Ca (0)

Jennifer Jo (0)

Cathie St (P1,250)

  

Cluster 5 – is only on Clare, and this from Shelley Crawford.

Emma Bo – my 3C1R (41.1cM) – she is the connector so could be Buchan or Bain

RJM69 (Jeanette Ma) An Aussie (P585)

Michael Mc (U10)

JJM45 j94, has a Marsh (45)

Nico Na (U22) USA, maternal line only

Mary Jo Bi (0)

Rebecca Da (U7) - has same name as in Nico’s

A.J. (amaiya Ja) (U6)

Dawn Sz (22)

Bernadette S (7)

Timothy Baker (23)

Jrharris53 (0)

Jmfhawkeye (0)

Joseph Ea (0)

S.B. (jenniferal) (3,254)

Terry Si (158)

Janine Be (0)

Daniel Mc (PU)

amber_wa (948)

Beverley Ha (723)

Candice Jo (0)

Sharley Ja (20.5cM) (596)

Judith No (0)

Sophia Au (6)

Moran_er (3)

JJFFV (0)

Ralph Cr (0)

Heather Co (9)

Bill Do (0)

Mary Ra (15)

DaleDeanBa (30)

Marilynsisil (69)

John Wh (0)

Diana Tr (0)

Misty Ty (12)

Alma Jo (0)

Elizabeth Louise Co (281)

Ruth Ro (74)

Cameron Sc (0)

Bonnie Fa (0)

John William Co (43)

James Co (56)

Clarks531 (385)

Deborah Bu (13)

Heather Kerns Co (2)

Greg My (0)

Jordan Wi (18)

Lauren Sc (0)

Vicki Clark Ti (106)

FTDNA Peter and Clare McGuiness (I have never even looked at this until recently).

K Jo (=Kath Jo)

B Jo

Duncan Ch

Cheryl L McC

Julie Va (has McRae)

Valerie Do

William John Be

Douglas John Ge

Christa Go

Karen Fr

Janie Ivy Ru

* Variant is an alternative spelling of the surname of people from the same family.