1782 Alexander Fortie and Mary Steedman

Alexander Fortie was born on 1 September, 1782 about 60 miles north east of Edinburgh Scotland in Logie, Fife, Scotland. (One genealogy record (no sources) has him born in 1780, if he was born the same year as his christening it would be 1782 (as above) and based on the 1841 census he was born in 1791 (most likely wrong).

His parents were:

Alexander Fortay (reason for last name change is unknown to me at this time) of Kilmany Scotland
and
Margaret Meville of Kemback, Fife, Scotland.

An old home in Logie Scotland



Near Logie



Historical note -

Logie is just across the river from Morphie where there is an old stone monument that is "Traditionally said to mark the grave of a son of Camus, killed in a battle between the Scots and the Danes". Local tradition claims the site as an alternative burial site for a leader of a Viking army that was decimated by the Scots army at the apocryphal Battle of Barry in 1010 AD.

Stone of Morphie

We don't know anything about Alexander's youth but he certainly took his time getting married. He most likely spent his time working and perhaps a little bit of time looking for the right girl. Finally, at the ripe old age of 34, a girl named Mary Steedman, age 21, caught Alexander’s eye. She was born in Dunfermline in 1798, about 10 miles north of Edinburgh (month and day are unknown at this time, this is based on genealogy records that have no sources and one record has one christening date at around 11 years old, if you go by the 1841 census she was born in 1811 but that is certainly wrong as it would put her at age 6 on her wedding day).

One source says, "Dumfermline, Fife, Scotland: Robert STEADMAN weaver Nethertown and Lille ANDERSON his wife had a daughter born 17th Dec baptized 1 Jan 1809 named Mary., birth and christening entery." 

This must also be the wrong Mary as this would also make her way too young on her wedding date. More research to be done.

Dunfermline

They were married on 28 March 1817  in Edinburgh (some genealogy records say 21 February, 1817 but give no sources).

Edinburgh

The information we have from Scottish marriages 1561 to 1910 includes very little detail (perhaps seeing the original record would be helpful - I'm trying to locate a copy of that).

Here is the Ancestry.com transcript:

Groom's Name: Alexander Fortie

Groom's Birth Date:

Groom's Birthplace:

Groom's Age:

Bride's Name: Mary Steedman

Bride's Birth Date:

Bride's Birthplace:

Bride's Age:

Marriage Date: 28 Mar 1817

Marriage Place: Edinburgh Parish, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland

Groom's Father's Name:

Groom's Mother's Name:

Bride's Father's Name: Robert Steedman

Bride's Mother's Name:

Groom's Race:

Groom's Marital Status:

Groom's Previous Wife's Name:

Bride's Race:

Bride's Marital Status:

Bride's Previous Husband's Name:

Indexing Project (Batch) Number: M11983-4

System Origin: Scotland-ODM

Source Film Number: 1066690

Reference Number:

Collection: Scotland Marriages, 1561-1910

Five years after they were married they had their only child, a little boy, on 9 July, 1822 there in Edinburgh. They named him Alexander (1822) after his grandfather, Alexander (1758), as was the tradition. Alexander (1782) was almost 40 and Mary was about 24. 

We only have the record of this one child. He grew up in Scotland and at the age of 20 he ran into some Mormon missionaries. Perhaps somewhere in an attic in Utah, lies an old dusty journal from a missionary who went to Scotland in 1843. If one were to open that journal there might be an entry that goes something like, “We taught the Fortie Family this week and Alexander Fortie accepted the restored gospel and I baptized him on Monday, 28 August, 1843.”

A few weeks after his baptism Alexander (1822) married an Irish girl named Christina Isabella Cuthbert who was born 19 November, 1822 in Ballymackenny Ireland.

Near Ballymackenny

More on Alexander (1822), my ancestor (of course - since he was an only child), on the next page.

We have very sketchy information on Alexander (1782) after that. One genealogy record (that doesn't have any sources) says he died around 1865 and another says he was buried in Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland 13 February 1842. Obviously one of them is wrong. Further research is needed.

With Mary it is the same. The only record I have says she died around 1871 (no sources given), anywhere from 6 to 29 years after her husband died and just one year after her only son left for America. One wonders what her thoughts might have been as her only son and her grandchildren boarded those ships on their way to a country that seemed so promising yet so far away. Were all the stories true about this new country? How long had a move to America been a dream of Alexanders? Did his mother have family near by that could be there to help her during those last few years? Did Alexander get a chance to take his family from their home in England up to Scotland to visit his mother before they left? Did she come down to see them off?  Census records are all we have and they are just numbers and statistics, a tiny window into the complex lives of our ancestors. How much better it would be to know the emotions of the best times and the worst times for those ancestors, how much that knowledge can help us as we go through similar trials and experiences. Perhaps, as we search for our ancestors we learn the importance of keeping records to help our great grandchildren as they struggle with the same things we go through in our lives.

Well, Mary's son, Alexander (1822), went on to live a good and sometimes difficult life in America. We can only hope his mother had comfort in her last few years here on earth without the comfort of family nearby. One has to believe that they were able to write to each other a few times before she passed away. If only we had those letters.




______________________________________________________________________

Someone famous from Fife Scotland that Alexander and Mary may have known or at least known about.

Sir David Wilkie (18 November 1785 – 1 June 1841) was a Scottish painter.

Wilkie was the son of the parish minister of Cults in Fife. He developed a love for art at an early age. In 1799, after he had attended school at Pitlessie, Kettle and Cupar, his father reluctantly agreed to his becoming a painter. Through the influence of the Earl of Leven Wilkie was admitted to the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh, and began the study of art under John Graham. From William Allan (afterwards Sir William Allan and president of the Royal Scottish Academy) and John Burnet, the engraver of Wilkie's works, we have an interesting account of his early studies, of his indomitable perseverance and power of close application, of his habit of haunting fairs and marketplaces, and transferring to his sketchbook all that struck him as characteristic and telling in figure or incident, and of his admiration for the works of Carse and David Allan, two Scottish painters of scenes from humble life. Among his pictures of this period are mentioned a subject from Macbeth, Ceres in Search of Proserpine, and Diana and Calisto, which in 1803 gained a premium of ten guineas at the Trustees' Academy, while his pencil portraits of himself and his mother, dated that year, and now in the possession of the Duke of Buccleuch, prove that Wilkie had already attained considerable certainty of touch and power of rendering character. A scene from Allan Ramsay, and a sketch from Macneill's ballad of Scotland's Skaith, afterwards developed into the well-known Village Politicians, were the first subjects in which his true artistic individuality began to assert itself.