How can I find out where my husband’s forebear George Irving was born?
QI’m trying to find out where my husband’s ancestor George Irving originated. In 1837, George married Susannah Mayhew in Bothal, Northumberland. They had six children (John 1838, Maria 1840, George 1842, William 1846, James 1849 and Robert 1852). In 1841, they were living in Chirton, Northumberland but later birth records show they moved to Whitehill Point. George died in July 1852, so should be traceable on the 1851 census, but I can’t find him. I know the name Irving has Scottish roots, so wonder if George came from there. Sue Wicker
AI’ve browsed the part of the 1851 census that covers the Chirton area of North Shields, but there’s no sign of the Irving family. There was a George Irwin at Hayhole, Percy Banks, just along the Tyne from Whitehill Point, but he was 68 while your husband’s ancestor George Irving was aged 40 when he died in 1852.
The 1841 census shows that there were 54 households enumerated as living at Whitehill Point, and the 1861, 45 households. In 1851, there may have been as many as 56 households, but most of these have the address “Percy Banks”, with only two adding “Whitehill Point” in the address column.
Judging by the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of the area (which you can find at the National Library of Scotland’s website maps.nls.uk/os), the main approach by land to the hamlet of Whitehill Point (on a promontory near the mouth of the River Tyne) was along a ‘wagonway’ from the village of Percy Main. I’m afraid it looks as though the census enumerator failed to call at those missing households at Whitehill Point.
I searched for George Irving (with variants) in the baptism indexes for Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland on findmypast.co.uk, without success. However, there was a George Irving baptised over the Scottish border in Dumfries, Dumfriesshire, on 13 March 1811. According to George Black’s The Surnames of Scotland (first published in 1946), the surname Irving originates mainly in an ancient parish of the same name in Dumfriesshire, and also in the town of Irvine in Ayrshire.
In the 1841 census, there is an Ann Irving, aged 52, living next door to George and his family. Could this be his mother? In 1851, Ann was a widow aged 64, living at a different address in Chirton with her widowed sister Mary Atchison, aged 84. Both are listed as having been born in
Plessy, Northumberland. Finding the sisters’ marriages may help you with your search.
Alan Stewart