A wee family history miracle

I (Richard) was taking an early morning stroll up past Canongate Kirk and passed the poet, Robbie Ferguson's statue.  I decided to step into the kirkyard to revisit the inscription Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about his fellow-author. The usual way through to the grave was blocked by construction and I was forced to go all the way around the church. As I rounded the back corner the name "Peddie" on a gravestone caught my eye.  William Peddie is the name of my ancestor, the Stirling Castle fort major from the 21st Foot, and also a current dead-end in our family history research in the 1800's, so  I needed to at least read this gravestone. William's death record tells us his father was Robert but we knew nothing about him.

Imagine my excitement when I read the following:

SACRED

To the Memory of

James Peddie

Captn in the 21st Reg of Foot

(Royal N. B. Fusiliers)

Who died here on the 17th Novr. 1818

Aged Eighty

This Stone is erected by his 

Wife and Children

To the most affectionate

Husband and Father

Also

On the 27th Nov 1820

Aged seventy two

Mrs. Elizabeth Young

His Spouse

The time period, name and regiment are correct; This is almost certainly a close relative.

Inspiration requires perspiration to bear fruit. I shared this find with Louise; with her extensive family history skills she had soon found a marriage and death certificate for Captain James Peddie. We even found that that he lived at Warriston Crescent before he died so we went to have a look. We chatted to a man doing sweeping his front step, and this being Scotland, of course he knew the history of the homes on the street and was able to indicate in which year each home was built in the 1800's. 

Warriston Crescent

We wanted more. Stirling Public Library Archives seemed promising so we emailed them. The archivist did a little preliminary research for us and told us that he had found references to Major William Henry Peddie's funeral in 1871, a fire at the castle in 1855, which Major Peddie helped put out, and the death of a fifteen month old baby son, but no clear references to his father, sorry, but we were welcome to come and see the material if we were interested. Were we interested? YES!

We arranged to take a morning away from the office, with the usual price of working late to catch up on missed work, and headed off to Stirling. Of course we also managed to combine the trip with some mission business in the same general area.

The young child who died was an important find. His name in the baptismal records of the Episcopal bishop, (a handwritten series of exercise-type books which the archivist dug out for us) was Robert and he was the eldest son. This was an important piece of the jigsaw. William Henry and his wife had named their children according to Scottish custom--eldest son named after paternal grandfather etc. But there had been a problem, the eldest son (that we knew about), was called John, not the supposed name of William's father, which was Robert. Now we had an eldest son called Robert! We were able to find and photograph birth details of many of the children, read with enjoyment the newspaper article of the fire, and were impressed by the glowing eulogy. Even allowing for fact that eulogies reflect the best of a person, William Henry was a remarkable man, one to emulate.

We did not identify the James that inspired the search, other than a passing reference to William's uncle and grandfather (no names) serving in the same regiment, but we have so much more than we did.

We are grateful for the wee miracle that inspired this episode. The search goes on.