James Wilson, it is agreed, and his wife Catherine Boak, are the ancestors of those Wilsons who ultimately emigrated to Tasmania and established themselves predominantly in the Oatlands district. This is confirmed by the historical records. For many years it was accepted that James Wilson was the son of John Wilson and Ann Etherington of Wilsontown fame. When no confirmation of that could be found we started looking around for other contenders, but the Wilson name (and it's variations Willson, Wilsone etc.) are common and the potential matches are numerous. This topic is for discussion regarding those potential matches, and related issues.
If you want to find out what the acronyms are in our footnotes view the References and Style Guide page.
If you wish to reproduce material from this website see the Copyright Guidelines page for further information.
If you wish to reproduce material from this website see the Copyright Guidelines page for further information.
This website has been archived on Pandora, the National Library of Australia's Web Archive,
click on the Pandora icon below to access Pandora's archive of the site:
The grave of a James Wilson is in the same graveyard as that mentioned in the post on The Wilson-Boag (Boak) Connection. The inscription is transcribed as:
The elder James died on 7 December 1789 according to the Old Parish Records2 (1787 Dec 7 James Wilson from Corston) Note the Corston reference. Is this James Wilson the father of the James Wilson (b.1751) who married Catharine Boak? (Could the following represent his family?)
James Wilson (b. 1724) married Mary Davison (alt. spelling Davidson) (bapt. 12 Jun 1718) 3 (June 12th James Davidson + Christian Hardie had a child baptised called Mary Witness Robert Davison Alex~r Davison) Married 9th Nov 17504 (November 9th 1750 James Wilson and Mary Davison both in this Paroch being lawfully proclaimed were married this day)
What is interesting about this information is that there are two possible links to ‘our’ James Wilson - the Corston reference, and the reference to infant David Wilson who died around the time suggested for the first David Wilson (son of James Wilson and Catherine Boag).
While others have found this headstone previously, and noted the potential relationship, it was never pursued due to lack of additional evidence. Sue Liston has provided that by locating a death registration that matches the headstone for a James Wilson of Corston, the known location of James Wilson who married Catherine Boak. The Wilson surname is common, but the additional reference to a deceased son David is enough to confirm that the death and headstone refer to James Wilson, the father of James Wilson who married Catherine Boak.
Given the age stated on the headstone Sue has also provided a potential family for James, and this family has been researched previously by Margaret Rackham as early as 2003, with one additional child:
There may be other candidate families that will be added to this topic as research progresses.
Margaret Rackham also believed the following family may represent James Wilson's family but as we now know James' father was James, not David. The use of the name Julian Wilson however and their location in Uphall suggests that perhaps James Wilson (Snr). and David Wilson were brothers:
David Wilson and Margaret Auld married 2 February 1854 in Mid Calder (1754 Feb 2 David Wilson, Uphall & Margaret Auld)1 and had the following children:
Note that David Wilson Junior honoured his parents David Wilson and Margaret Auld by erecting a headstone in the St. Nicholas Cemetery where James Wilson (Snr.) was also buried:
If James and David are brothers, then David Wilson (1712-1784) could well be the witness mentioned at the baptism of James (b.1751) son of James and Mary Davison.
James Wilson (bapt. 8/10/1751) Parish Uphall or Strathbrock /West Lothian OPR Births 672/00 0020 0055 [October 8th James Wilson and his wife Mary Davison had a child baptised named James. Witnesses Thomas Robb and David Wilson]
There have been many developments in the last few days that will take some time to fully research but we are probably jumping ahead of ourselves by trying to work out the relationship of James Wilson and David Wilson at this point. Helen Brown, a notable Wilson researcher, discussing David Wilson and Margaret Auld, remembered that:
Helen also provided a report detailing a potential arrangement of the Wilson Family of Uphall that would suggest that James and David Wilson were in fact second cousins as demonstrated in the following chart:
Note that this relationship is not substantiated, and that there were two couples with the name David Wilson and Margaret Auld, just to add to the potential confusion. At this stage all this means is that it is too early to determine their relationship with accuracy, but we will attempt over time to reveal as much as supported by the historical record.
This discussion has been incorporated into The Wilson Family of Uphall section.
Based on the traditional Scottish naming pattern, an analysis of the christian names of each of the families of the ten children of James WILSON and Catherine BOAK, has proved somewhat inconclusive. Of the known children, one died young - David (c 1788-c 1789); two possibly never married - Willian (1786-?); and John (1801-1877); and had no known children. Of the remaining children, two were females - Mary (1782-?) who married John WHITE; and Margaret (1798-1875) who married William BYRES; and their children's naming pattern would partially apply to the paternal side of these other family surnames. Some of the remaining children who married, did not have sufficient children, or sufficient males to give an indication of possible grandparents, particularly on the paternal side.
The family christian names of first child Mary, suggested her grandparents might be James WILSON and Mary (DAVIDSON ?); and the christian names of other children seem to sugges a more likely set of grandparents of William, James or Thomas WILSON and Catherine ..... (?). None of the names on the WILSON side seem to suggest the possibility of grandparents with names of James WILSON and Margaret (AULD ?). The wide variations in the results would possibly suggest that the parents did not adhere strictly to the traditional naming patterns which is not unusual. An analysis of the christian names in the successive (great-grandchildren's) families, may offer more possibilities.
The results were -