The Blank at the Top of the Tree

Great-great-great-great-grandfather William is my most distant known McKenzie ancestor, but how much do I know about him?  Cousin Bruce wrote:

My Great Grandfather was a distiller in Scotland, and we of this generation should remember that that professions was held in the greatest respect in the old city of Aberdeen.  Great Grandfather was married twice and had a son by each union.  At the time of his death the business was left to his two sons...the son by his second wife receiving the major share of the business.  This might have caused a rift between the two half-brothers, but certainly the business deteriorated and the brothers parted.  My grandfather emigrated with his wife and family of that date to Canada.  Grandfather had married a Miss Mary Brown.  The then Miss Brown was of Lowland Scottish ancestry while grandfather was of Highland extraction.

This was the family story as he knew it, told to him by his father and his many aunts and uncles.  The baptismal record of James Paterson McKenzie confirmed that William was a distiller, and that he was employed at Glennoth Distillery, near Rhynie, Aberdeenshire.  I visited Rhynie, identifying the former location of Glennoth, or Glen O'Noth (as opposed to the Tap O'Noth), but the distillery is long gone.  Other family tales say that our distiller ancestor lost an arm in an accident and had to find a new occupation, managing the Kennethmont Inn.

William McKenzie and Jane Warrack married at Rhynie on 29 November 1835, just a few months before the arrival of their twins at the end of February 1836.  I must have looked shocked to discover this, as the staff at the Family History Centre hurried to reassure me that the way my ancestors behaved had nothing to do with me; my shock was because I had built an image of them in my mind as stern Presbyterian stock, largely due to my own ignorance of 19th century rural Scottish society, but also because of photos like this:

James Paterson McKenzie and Mary Brown circa 1901: the passion unleashed.

Back to the wedding:

William McEnzie & Jean Warrock marriage record, Rhynie, 1835

Nov. 29th 1835
William McEnzie, Brewer at Newseat & Jean Warrack were married the twenty ninth day of November Eighteen hundred and thirty five before these witnesses John Morrison & John Gordon

So William had been a brewer at Newseat (near Rhynie) in November 1835, then a distiller at Glennoth by March 1836 and at some point wound up a publican in Kennethmont.  He was certainly there by 1841:

William McKenzie and family, 1841 Census, Kirkhill, Kennethmont

1841 UK Census
Kirkhill, Kennethmont, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
William McKenzie, Male, 35, Publican, Not born in County
Jane McKenzie, Female, 30, Born in County
Joseph McKenzie, Male, 15, Not born in County
William McKenzie, Male, 5, Born in County
James McKenzie, Male, 5, Born in County
Christian Elder, Female, 15, Female Servant, Not born in County
Isabella Pettrie, Female, 10, Female Servant, Born in County

Now the 1841 census is a funny thing.  Censuses should never be taken as definitive proof of anything, the 1841 being particularly vague: although it was the first census to record the names of everyone in the household, ages for people over 15 were rounded down to the nearest five years, thus, William's age of 35 meant only that he was at least 35 and not yet 40.  It also didn't specify birthplaces beyond whether or not the person was born in the county in which they were then living.  The 1841 census hadn't helped much at all: all I knew now was that William was born more or less sometime between 7 June 1801 and 6 June 1806 somewhere in Scotland other than Aberdeenshire. 

(It was at this point that I went off in the wrong direction for a couple of years, spurred on by the discovery of an 1806 baptismal record for a William McKenzie in Stirling, son of James McKenzie and Jean/Jane Paterson.  William had a son named James Paterson so must have named the baby for his parents.  Notwithstanding the fact that Stirling was 125 miles from Rhynie: the names made it a legitimate connection!  Even better, Jean/Jane Paterson appeared to have come from Glasgow because someone of that name was born in Glasgow about 20 years before she married James McKenzie in Stirling: this genealogy stuff is a breeze!

Some time later, by which time I possessed a certificate in genealogical studies from the University of Toronto and a great deal more scepticism, I reconsidered this ancestry, but not before I'd made my wild mass guesses available to various genealogy sites from which I see these errors repeated in other people's family trees to which they've been copied and pasted without having been examined critically.  Beware online family trees!  Except mine, of course.)

Let's take another look at the 1841 census and see who else was in the household.  Like Joseph McKenzie, aged 15.  Bruce wrote that William had married twice, with a son by each marriage, but seemed to think that our ancestor was from the first marriage.  Who was Joseph?  Was James from the second and Joseph from the first?

It didn't take too long to track down Joseph.  He was born just over the border in Banffshire.  And his baptismal record indicated that I wouldn't need to search for a marriage record for William:

Baptismal record of Joseph McKenzie, Marnoch, 1826

Anno. 1826
Decr: 1st
McKenzie
William McKenzie, residing at Boyndsmill, had a Son in fornication by Eliza: Winton baptized and named Joseph Witnesses Geo: Elder and William Leslie

Awesome!  English parish registers are so disappointingly dull by comparison.

So William was living in Banffshire in 1826.  Was he from there originally?  There were McKenzies in and around Marnoch, but no way to narrow down which of the Williams could have been mine, especially when I knew only that he was born around 1801-1806.  The 1851 census should have a more specific age and birthplace for William, except I'd found this in the Kennethmont baptismal register:

Baptism of Jane McKenzie, 1844, Kennethmont

December 16th 1844
William McKenzie in Kirkhill had a posthumous child baptized and named Jane, the mother of the child being sponsor.

(If Jane Warrack hadn't been the sponsor, there might not even have been any mention that a woman was involved!)  I searched for William in the Old and New Cemeteries at Kennethmont without success.  Civil registration of deaths didn't begin in Scotland until 1855 and the Kennethmont burial registers haven't survived.  Assuming that William was indeed the father of this child, and, as later censuses and Jane's marriage and death certificate all suggest that she was born sometime during 1844, it's likely that William had died earlier that year.

The National Archives of Scotland holds the sasine registers - like records of property transfers.  I hope to find one relating to the Kennethmont Inn, either when William died or when his widow remarried and her new husband took over as publican and innkeeper, as this might be the only other way of finding out anything more about him.  It might even clear up the mystery of the half-brother who received the larger share of the business: did it go to Joseph?  Or did the family story get garbled in the retelling and it was William's widow's second husband who took over?

And this is the blank at the top of my family tree.  My most distant McKenzie ancestor is William, born sometime between 1801 and 1806, somewhere in Scotland that wasn't Aberdeenshire.  He was living in Marnoch, Banffshire by December 1826 when his son was born.  In 1835 he was a brewer at Newseat, near Rhynie, and he married Jane Warrack, and in 1836 he was a distiller at Glennoth and became the father of twin sons.  He might have lost an arm at some point, but it wasn't interesting enough to make the Aberdeen Journal.  In 1841 he was a publican at Kirkhill, Kennethmont and by the end of 1844 he was dead.

Family of William McKenzie (?1801/6-?1844):
With Elizabeth Winton (c1803-1867):

• Joseph, chr. 1 December 1826, Marnoch.  Married Isabella Murray (1823-1904) at Marnoch, 5 June 1852.  Eight children.  Died 18 January 1905 at Aberchirder and buried at Marnoch.

With Jane Warrack (c1808-1876):

• William Alexander, b. 23 February 1836, Rhynie.  Married (1) Margaret Gordon (1839-1862) at Mitchell, Perth County, Canada West, 19 April 1860.  Two children.  Married (2) Martha Boyle (1838-1914) 24 December 1862 at Mitchell, Perth County, Canada West.  Six children.  Died 27 November 1910 at Mitchell, Ontario, Canada and buried there at Knox Presbyterian Cemetery.
• James Paterson, b. 24 February 1836, Rhynie.  Married Mary Brown (1838-1902) at Clatt, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 3 June 1858.  Fourteen children.  Died 17 May 1904 at Oxbow, Assiniboia (now Saskatchewan) and buried there.
• Jane, chr. 16 December 1844 at Kennethmont.  Two natural children.  Married James Mackie (1856-1932) at Aberdeen Old Machar, 28 December 1883.  One child.  Died 24 December 1923 at Fetteresso, Kincardineshire, Scotland.

Other children of Elizabeth Winton (c1803-1867):

• William Gordon (1830-?), son of James Gordon
• James Aitken (1837-?), son of James Aitken

Other child of Jane Warrack (c1808-1876):

• Isobel Warrack Watson, daughter of Alexander Watson, chr. 1 September 1850 at Kennethmont, died 6 December 1929 at Aberdeen Old Machar.  Unmarried.

See an update from January 2013