Jenny Hughes contacted the website to share the tremendous work she’d done on these two family lines.

First on Alexander + Margaret Blackhall [A30] she wrote:

I believe I might be able to assist with information for Alexander, the son of Alexander Mutch (A29) and Janet Henderson. I have found a record on Scotland’s People that he died In St Nicholas in 1867.

An Alexander Mutch married Margaret Blackhall on 29.2.1851 in Foveran.

They had a number of children including Alexandrina. I came across a record from the 1861 Census where she was a visitor in the house of her Grandmother, Jane Blackhall (nee Stirling) and was listed as a Shipmaster’s daughter.

The death record for Alexander confirmed his parents and closed another gap in the Mutches puzzle!

In addition she established three new children for Alexander’s sister Jane, from the same family line:

Now for Jane Mutch, daughter of Alexander Mutch and Janet Henderson, and listed on the photographed headstone at Newburgh:

Jane does not appear to have ever married, but she did have three children. The eldest of these, my great grandmother, Elspeth McDonald or Mutch is listed above in the 1861 census. I have found, also on Scotland’s People, the Kirk Session Minutes, where James McDonald confesses paternity and Jane is disciplined for this, her third offence. She then had a son, John, and there is another Kirk Session Minute about this baby, but the father is not so clearly identified. A few years later, she had another daughter, Mary, and I have not found mention of this baby in the Kirk Session Minutes.

I do know Elspeth married a stonemason, named John Adam from Kemnay. They had their oldest sons in Aberdeen, Scotland by the time they emigrated, along with Elspeth’s sister Mary on the ship “North” arriving in Sydney, Australia on 24th December, 1883. They brought a granite headstone with them on the ship, and it is similar in size and grandeur to the one photographed. They had several more children in Australia.

Mary also married and had a number of children. Both women were well respected members of their families and communities. The two sisters remained close for the remainder of their lives, Elspeth dying in 1933.

We are all deeply indebted to Jenny for sharing her excellent research with the other users of the website