The website for the Family History of Stoker & Lynn Wilson
A page listing some other significant families in the Family History site.
Where are they? Not found but they must exist! For two generations at the beginning of the twentieth century "Stoker" was a Christian name in the Wilson family. My namesake is my Great Uncle, "Robert Stoker Wilson". Two cousins were named "Robert Stoker Wilson" and "Robert Stoker Morgan". So it's reasonable to suppose that the Stoker must have been a family surname of some value. But all efforts to find them have currently come to nothing.
The Gordons were my maternal grandmothers’ family, "Mary Coxon" nee Gordon. The Gordons can be traced back to Gateshead and may have come from Scotland before that. The earliest so far found is "George Gordon". His son "Robert Gordon" (c1825) married "Magdalen Napier" (c1829) who did come from Scotland. The house the family owned in Newbiggin by the Sea in Cleveland Terrace was called "Gordon House", a rather pretentious name for a small two bedroomed terrace house! They had nine children.
Their eldest child "James (Jim)" (c1849) was a great grandfather. He married "Margaret Butler"(c1850), a Gateshead girl. They had six children amongst them my Grandmother (1879). I only ever knew two of them, my Grandmother, "Mary Coxon", and her sister “Aunt Maggie”.
My grandmother Mary's marriages were a bit mixed up. She married "John Joseph Temple" (1872) in 1899 and gave birth to my "Aunt Amy" in 1900 whom I knew on her visits home from Canada. It's at this point that the Gordon's and Coxon's came together when she married my Grandfather "Robert Coxon" in 1907. They had my Uncle "John Robert Coxon" (1907) #25 later that year. Herein lies the mystery, Joseph Temple did not die until 1910, and there's no sign of a divorce. Moreover, on her marriage certificate she describes herself as "Spinster". Was she being "economical with the truth"?
The Dunnets came into our family when Isabella "Eveline Dunnett" (1898) married "Arthur Albert Johnson" (1897) in 1917. She was Lynn Wilson's (Johnson) Grandmother. The Dunnets came from the far north of Scotland around Dunnet head in Caithness. The earliest we know of was a "Walter Dunnet" (c1760). A Grandson "William Wallace Sinclair Dunnett" (1835) moved down to Liverpool. His son "William Sinclair Dunnett" (1869) moved east to Chester le Street where he married "Isabella Eveline Dunnett" . We don't know a lot more about the Dunnets. Much of my information came from a family member Stephen Cooke with little documentation, and I've yet to get around to check it through. (The spelling of "Dunnet" varies. I have used the version with one "t" when talking generically after "Dunnet Head in Caithness from where the family originated.)
These are two families living over the Scottish border in Roxburghshire and Berwickshire who have significance in this Family History.
The Scotts are quickly dealt with. "Helen Scott" (1822) first appears in the 1841 Census living with the family of "James Jamieson" (1772) and his wife "Julian Cairns" (1773) as a servant. Trying to track earlier generations of Scott has so far proved impossible. The parish records in Sprouston where Helen's marriage took place were destroyed in a fire and we yet have no other means of positively identifying Helen's parents. (Helen Scott is a very widespread name in the borders.) I have provisionally entered her parents as Robert and Eleanor based on Scottish naming patterns, but again identification of them is not yet possible.
The Jamiesons can be traced further back. The earliest found so far is "Robert Jamieson" (about 1740) who married "Isabel Dickson" (about 1740). A son was "James" (1772) who married "Julian Cairns" (1773). And their youngest son "William" (1819) married Helen Scott.
Helen & William married about 1842 in time for the birth of their first child "James" (1873) in December 1843. They went on to have nine children including my GtGrandmother "Julia Ann Jamieson" (1850). By 1851 they had moved south of the border and, moving from time to time, later generations eventually settled in Bedlington.
We can trace the ancestors of Julian back a further three generations to a (about 1765, pronounced “Giles” ?) and "Barbara Pirie" (about 1765) who were married in 1709 in Strichen, Aberdeenshire.
There are many other families in this Family History not previously mentioned, some of whom we know very little. Within the first five generations other names encountered are "Margaret Ormson" wife of Robert Davison, "Hannah Ridley" wife of James Brown, "Isabella Robinson" wife of WMY Wilson, "Eliza Jane Foster" wife of Archibald McMeiken , "Martha Gilmour" wife of Archibald McMeiken, "Annie Welch" wife of William Proctor and "Isabella Donaldson" wife of Henry Welch.