William Douglas(s), born 1798, Galway

Dear Kierano

Welcome to Ireland Reaching Out and apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

I had a look on rootsireland.ie and there is no baptism record in Co. Galway for a William Douglas between 1793 and 1803. Given the early period of your search, this is not entirely surprising as parish records are only available for that period in very few cases.

One way around this is to explore the School Teacher information. You could try to access the Education Commissioners reports - some of these are available online at the website listed below:

http://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi/documents/10935/page/248601

The reports refer to schools and their teachers and pupils. Only some of the reports are available online. As William seems to have been in the military in 1822 it might be difficult to find out much about him.

Some info about Schools' records is available from the National Archives, Dublin:
http://www.nationalarchives.ie/topics/Nat_Schools/natschs.html

It is likely that William was a teacher in a hedge or pay school - schools that were in operation prior to the official national school system that began in the 1830s.

If you learn anything new, let us know

Best wishes
Clare Doyle
Genealogy Support

Hi Clara,

Thanks for checking. As it happens, I made a miscalculation on William's DOB, which was, in fact, 1804.

It seems that, after a distinguised military career serving all over the world, he was court martialled and subsequently convicted of murder in India in 1847, the sentence being 'transportation for life'. I'm guessing he ended up in Australia, then somewhere in the U.K.

Thanks,

Kieran

Hi Kieran,  Just been directed to your post on William Douglas after posting something similar myself.  He was my 3 times great grandfather.  We now know he received a pardon for his crime but died not long after in Calcutta.  Are you related to him?  It would be fascinating to learn more about his background and the links to Galway / Ireland.  Cheers Dougie

Hi Dougie,

There was William. His son was William too. William Jr's son was Frederick Augustus was the father of my maternal grandmother, Phyllis Douglas, who raised me when my mother died. Nancy Aitken Visima - one of our distant relatives - has done a pretty amazing job cataloguing everything. Whereabouts are you based, Dougie? 

Warm regards,

Kieran

Hi Kieran,

I was going to point you to Nancy’s stuff.  So we are third cousins to each other and Nancy.  My maternal grandfather’s mother was Frederick Augustus’ sister Elizabeth.  She stayed on in Whitehaven when most of the family went to Lancashire or emigrated.  I’m in Edinburgh - my mum married a Scotsman after the war.  Where are you?  

I guess we are never going to get back beyond William James but I do seem to have DNA links to County Clare.

Cheers Dougie