The Robertsons – My Robertsons not the fictional ones

I suppose in a way, they are all mine. After all, I did create the fictional Robertson family.

We’ll start with John Robertson, my grandfather. When he married my grandmother, he had already been married once before and had ten children!

John’s parents were John and Jane Robertson who made their home near Insch. She was a Robertson before she married my great-grandfather. Given that the surname was quite common in this part of Aberdeenshire in the 1800s, it’s not unusual that two people with the same surname got together.

The inscription on the bottom of this stone is interesting – “not dead but sleeping”.

Grandpa Robertson’s first wife (Susan Christie) died in 1899. Two years later, he married my grandmother, Margaret MacDonald.

Margaret’s surname has been spelled MacDonald, Macdonald, McDonald, etc. You get the idea.

When they got married, Margaret had already had one child – a son.

Ten children later,  Margaret passed away from the measles and pneumonia.

Grandpa Robertson is buried here along with his first wife, Susan Christie, and my grandmother, Margaret MacDonald.

The copies of the marriage certificates were obtained through the help of a genealogist who had been recommended to me but now, amateur sleuths can look up these documents and more at Scotland’s People.