The eight children of James(2) Cameron and Catherine Ramsay are:
1. Janet Cameron. Janet(also called Jessie) Cameron was Christened 6 Jan 1835 in Birse, Scotland. She married Hugh Sinclair on 23 Dec 1876 in Charleston, Nigg at the age of 36. Hugh Sinclair was born 14 Jan 1832 and died on 8 June 1908. He was 39 when he married Janet. Janet passed away 18 Jan 1890 and Hugh Sinclair had a second marriage to a Jane Abel.
2. James(3) Cameron, was Christened 19 Jan 1837 in the Parish of Birse. After the family moved to Charleston, when he was 28, he married Margaret Allan on 28 Aug 1868. By 1871 they were living at Woodside Farm, a croft of 46 acres and had 2 children, James(4) 2years old and Janet Milne, 9 months old. By 1881 living with them on Woodside Farm which was now 137 acres were the children, Janet Milne, James(4), John, William, Catherine Ramsay and Margaret Ann. William Cameron 22 years old, a nephew is also living with them. We cannot be sure of his parents. He may have been the son of John Cameron in Inveravon and born at Garline Farm in 5 Jan 1860. In later life he move back to Alive, Elgin where he died.
Living at Woodside Farm in 1891 were James(3)52, Margaret his wife(48) and the children, Janet(20), John(19), William(17), Catherine(16), Rosaline(7) and Alexander(6). James(4) Cameron(21) had left and Margaret Ann(14) is not shown and may have been a servant elsewhere. We will follow the lives of all these children in separate chapters.
3. Jean Cameron, was born in Mar 1839 in Charleston, Nigg and Christened 14 April 1839. It is shown in the Parrish Records that Jean, Daughter of James Cameron, Mason, died 6 April 1861 at the age of 22 years of phthsis, a respiratory disease.
4. William Cameron, was born 8 Aug 1841 in Charleston, Nigg. He died 6 Oct 1914 in New Zealand. He was the first to leave Scotland and led an eventful life that is covered later in a narrative created by Diana Mackie in June 2007.
5. Peter Cameron, was born 23 Jan 1845 in Charleston, Nigg. Died 22 April 1861 at age 16 when he drowned after falling off the rocks of nearby Cove Bay seaside cliffs.
6. Anne Cameron, was born 20 June 1847 in Charleston, Nigg. She died in New Zealand on 28 Sept 1924 in Enfield, North Otago outside of Dunedin. Like her brother William, looking for greater opportunities, Anne left Scotland with her brother John to go to Canada. After John married she returned to Scotland. William had written about New Zealand and his farm so she went to New Zealand and on 23 June 1882 she married James Stirling. James was a Farm Labourer who died 8 Jan 1915. They had 3 children, William Stirling born 22 June 1883, died Abt. 1970, James Ramsay Stirling born 27 Dec 1885 and died 1965 and Annie Stirling born 7 Dec 1887 and died 8 May 1962 in Christ Church, New Zealand.
7. John Cameron, was born 22 Aug 1850 in Charleston, Nigg and died 24 Feb 1922 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. After traveling to Canada with his sister Anne he met and married Hannah Fraser on January 14, 1876. Hannah was born about 1850 so they were the same age of 26 when they married 14 Jan 1876. The couple had twin boys born the following year of 1877. These were James Cameron and William Henry Cameron. William is noted as being Founder of National Safey Council in Chicago.
8. Thomas Ramsay Cameron, was born 6 Sept 1855 in Charleston, Nigg. He is shown in the 1891 Census as living on Charleston Road at age 35 with his wife Jemina, age 29. He is now a Salmon Fisher with 6 children. They are WIlliam(11), John(9), Thomas(7), James(5), Helen(2) and George Stewart(3 months). George died of flu at the age of 7 months. Catherine Ramsay Cameron(79), his mother, was also living with Thomas Ramsay at the time.
WILLIAM CAMERON, (Wayward) YOUNG ADVENTURER
William Cameron must have been a good-looking lad and a bit of a scamp who sometimes disappeared from doing all farm work. He had a mind of his own. He was one of the first to emigrate, went so far and did not return. Nonetheless, he thought of those in his homeland, sponsored other family members, and tried to provide restitution at the end of his life.
He was born August 22, 1841, a second son , fourth child, and first to be born in the Cameron's new home of Charleston, Nigg. The early 1840s were a good time for the Camerons. Peter had urged brother James to move from Birse to the coast as better farming land and tenant arrangements were available. Did the brothers, staunch Established Church of Scotland members, realize that their tenant fees were supporting a new Catholic girls school in Edinburgh through the John Menzies trust as owner of the land?
Nonetheless they were keen to have more land and their farms were next to each other. Within a few years there were four cousin babies: George, Peter, Jean and William.
When William was 17, he had a summer tryst with a local farm servant Isobel Glennie, age 20, just down the road. Isobel went to her cousin's in Newhills parish-a considerable distance away-to have her son, born William Glennie on April 25, 1860. William was not acknowledged as the father.
Her cousin ad a family and didn't want the burden of another child as well as her cousin. So about two months later Isobel went to the Kirk Session in Banchory Devenick, to admit her sin ans seek support for her and the child. She named William as the father. Of course he was from Nigg parish, so the story traveled back to his parents, who were horrified. Rather than continue the scandal and have another congregation support their first grandchild, Catherine asked that the baby William come to Woodside Farm. She had two daughters at home who could help raise the baby. So when the 1861 census was recorded in early April 1861, baby William was last on the list, at 11 months.
After Isobel brought baby William to the farm, she left the area and never saw her son again.
The month of April 1861 brought tragedy to the Woodside Farm. On the 3rd, jean Cameron who had always been weekly, died of phthsis, a respiratory disease. Then on the 22nd, Peter age 16 and William went down to fish at Cove Bay. It was a stormy day and cold. They were on a small cliff above the rocks. William thought his new sweetheart Margaret Smith. 21 might come by and looked away from the shore when he heard a cry of help! Peter had slipped at the edge and tumbled into the sea. William saw him disappear but had no way to reach him/ He ran back to the farm to get help, but to no avail. When he returned with the men of the family and the neighborhood, they searched the shore, but never found the body. William never forgot this tragedy and his inability to help his brother. He had turned away from farming and now the sea would never be in his future either.
But William was really in hot water with his parents for as Isobel left the area in early 1861, William's eye was wandering to a lass down by the sea, at the end of Cove Road. Margaret Smith might have expected that William would marry her, but in fact he was still paying his debt to Banchory Devenick Free Church for Isobel's plea. So soon after baby William had arrived at Woodside Farm, the Nigg Kirk Session heard on March 3, 1861 from Margaret Smith that "she was with child" and that William Cameron was the father.
Margaret wanted the baby, named Janet after her mother, and turned away from William. She moved from Nigg to Wyndy Whyd in Aberdeen and supported the baby by flax winding, which she could do at home while watching the baby. He was absolved by the Nigg church on March 3, 1862. Then baby Janet was struck down by phthsis, and died in October 1962.
William was drawn to the Free Church by their sense of forgiveness compared to the formality of the Nigg church, its steepled church at the top of the hill. And he couldn't look at the rigged ship that hung from the ceiling in Nigg without a constant reminder of brother Peter.
William became a builder, working as a mason in the great quarry across from Woodside Farm. He joined his father and neighbors who worked the quarry when farming was quiet.
He continued to attend the Banchory Devenick Free Church and met Emma Brittain who was temporarily working in the area. She played hard to get and finally on December 5th, 1862 they were married by Minister David Finley Arthur of the Free Church. Peter Cameron, his cousin and his father James stood witness to the marriage.
James and Catherine must have sighed relief as William settled down. They continued to care for baby William Glennie as the newly weds did not have room for a 2 ½ year toddler. William and Emma moved to into Aberdeen, settling near the old town, in Old Machar parish where the cathedral was. Their first child arrived in September 7th 1866 and was named Jean perhaps in memory of his sister Jean. Would tragedy ever leave his life?
William continued his inland trade and was a diligent apprentice: he became a mason journeyman by 1869.
Another daughter Emma Catherine named for two supportive women in his life was born October 11, 1869. Daughter Jane who was stronger in every way, born February 22, 1871, followed Emma. About this time, another girl joined the family: Willamina Bedit, listed in the April 1871 census of the household in Aberdeen. William and Emma eventually adopted Mina. Mina's origins remain a mystery so far.
Father James(2) Cameron died in 1873 and as a successful potato farmer, had some funds to support each child in the desires for a better life. After all there wasn't any discussion but that the farm would go to eldest son James(3) Cameron.
The William Camerons were saving money for they both wanted to leave Scotland. Greater opportunity lay in the colonies, William, his brothers, and neighbor boys were all talking about it. Leave tragedy behind and start afresh! While Emma and William chose to set their sights on New Zealand, younger brother John went to Canada. Anne Cameron accompanied her brother to Canada and witnessed John's wedding to Hannah Fraser on January 14, 1876, but she did not stay.
Emma and William set sail in the mid-1870s. Emma was pregnant but lost the child at sea. They settled in New Zealand in 1876 when David Brittain was born April 29th in Dunedin, the obvious choice for settlement by northern Scots. Five other children followed: Catherine Ramsay (always called Kate), born 1878: William Cameron, born 1882 (this seems a bit strange): John Earnst born 1883, Charles Wilson, born 1884, and finally Georgina Waters born 1885. During this decade the William Camerons established their home at East Taieri, Otafo, outside of Dunedin.
They wrote home about the farm and the opportunity and this caused Annie to come to New Zealand. Family lore had it that she lost a fiance to the sea. Her mother Catherine Ramsay Cameron encouraged Annie to go as she was self-sufficient and living with her youngest son Thomas and his family in the 1881 census.
So William opened his house to Annie who married James Stirling there on June 23, 1882-a winter wedding.
The guns of August 1914 in Europe were far away, but William heard his own bell and attended to his affairs, making his first and last will about a month before he died October 6, 1914. Every child was given a portion. William born 1882 was not alive. But William Glennie born 1860 was. William Glennie used his £50 to improve his business as a potato merchant. Even Willaminia received a bequest.
On wonders what William the father (age 36) told William Glennie the son (age 16) when father left the shores? Was there contact regularly? Did the son let his father know of his marriage and Children? Perhaps thru Annie who was a key communications keeper among the Camerons in Canada, Scotland and New Zealand. Were the bequests made from guilt, fairness, love-or all of these?
THE END
P.S. What happened to William's first two sweethearts?
Isobel Glennie married Thomas Fraser in June 1862 and they returned to his area of Rhynie. Thomas could not read or write but he was a diligent farm servant and much in love with the beauty of Isobel. Unfortunately she died during a typhus fever epidemic less than 2 years after her marriage, February 1864. Whether there was a child has not been checked.
Margaret Smith had two possible futures.
First she married at age 21 Alexander Brechin, a farm labourer of 30 years in Charleston, Nigg on December10, 1864. The couple returned to Keith Hall where they farmed. Alexander died at age 41 of bronchitis and pneumonia in the winter of 1876, February 19th. They had a child Robert, born 1868 in Inverurie.
Second possibility was that Margaret burned by the abandonment of William, she remained living in Aberdeen, coming to live with her mother at time. At 30 she then married William Craig, a 28 year old white fisher in Cove Bay. Her mother Janet was present at this marriage. Whether there were children has not been checked. This is the more likely option.