A bit of a brickwall smash: Frank Gillanders Matheson 1833-1909

As genealogists do from time to time, I was reviewing some old research for my great grandfather and some of his children last week. This is how breakthroughs or other discoveries are often made through the endless task of connecting the dots.

While looking at the 1946 death registration of his son Alex, I noticed that Frank is listed as Frank Gillanders Matheson, as reported by Frank's daughter, Catherine Matheson Graham. I've looked at that document many times, but until last week there had been no ah ha! moment for me. I was then reminded that Frank is recorded in the 1860 Scotland census as Frank G. Mathieson (yes, of course the name Matheson has several spelling variations).

Keeping in mind Scots naming patterns, it seems likely that Gillanders was the maiden name of one of Frank's grandmothers. A check of my 200+ AncestryDNA matches shows that I have three with the name Gillanders as direct ancestors. My brother has more. That doesn't make my task any less than finding a needle in a haystack though.

Still, Gillanders is a new clue. On top of others.

The never ending story continues....


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