Out of Place- The Photos that led to Uncle William Menzies (1824-1900)

April 15, 2019

Out of Place- The Photos that led to Uncle William Menzies (1824-1900)

Since I’m on something of a roll writing about my Scottish family I think I’ll continue with a story of how some photos that seemed out of place led me to discover a previously unknown great uncle and his family. Last year my parents uncovered a box from my grandparent’s things full of pictures. I could tell that they were from my Grandmother’s side of the family since almost all of them were taken in Scotland. The most interesting thing in that box was an old cabinet card album that seemed to have belonged to my half great uncle Alexander Adams. He only had one daughter, who never had any children, so his things came to our family.

Alexander was the grandson of SarahBorland and Robert Menzies, who I wrote about last week and I was hoping to discover some photos of their families. Unfortunately very few of the photos were labelled and many to this day are unidentified. Many of the photos were taken in Greenock, Port Glasgow, and other parts of Scotland, which was expected as that is where the Menzies family lived. However, as I went through the photos I noticed that a good portion of them were taken in Australia. These seemed very out of place. I didn’t know of any relatives on any side in Australia.

Mary Willie and Bobbie

Labeled: Willie Scot age 6

Labeled: Bobbie Miller age 6

Labeled: Bobbie Miller age 13

Labeled: Mary Menzies age 19

Fortunately some of these photos were labeled. There were several of a young boy name “Bobby Miller” and another one of “Willie Scott” and one of three children labeled “Bobby, Willie, and Mary”. But none of those helped me figure out which side of the family these were on as I hadn’t found any marriages with Scotts or Millers. The one photo that really helped me break through the mystery was one of a young woman labeled Mary Menzies age 19 taken in Melbourne. Because of her last name I was confident that I at least knew the side of the family I was looking for.

I spent some time researching the studios where the photos were taken and discovered the F C Burman, who took the photos of the children, was photographing at that location from 1877-1885 and that Stewart and Co, the company that photographed 19 year old Mary Menzies, was active at that address in the 1880s to 1900. Based on these dates and ages it seemed that William, Bobbie and Mary were all probably born around the 1870s. At first I wasn’t sure how to proceed from there. I knew nothing about Australian research and I didn’t have an ancestry world subscription. Fortunately someone pointed me to the Victoria BMD website, which has searchable indexes for birth marriage and death. From there everything fell into place.

William Menzies was the brother of my ancestor Robert Menzies. I didn’t know this before I started researching the pictures, but the parents listed on his death index were Samuel Menzies and Jane Barr, the same parent’s listed on Robert’s Scottish death certificate. Like Robert he was born in

The William Menzies family about 1869 in Greenock (identified by ages and order of children)

William Menzies family c 1873

Ireland and came from Ireland to Greenock Scotland, where he worked as a sugar Pansman. He married Mary Walker sometime before 1855 when his oldest daughter Jane was born in Greenock. Their family continued to grow and can be seen on the 1861 and 1871 censuses with their two oldest daughters Jane and Eleanor as well as their five younger sons. Between 1871 and 1876 he and his family immigrated to Australia, but he must have kept in touch with his family in Scotland and sent them the photos I found.

In 1876 William and Mary had their youngest daughter Mary Menzies in Australia. Around the same time their two oldest daughters married, Eleanor to Alexander Scott, and Jane to John Miller. They both had sons name William Scott and Robert Miller, respectively. Unfortunately John Miller died, and Jane did not remarry so Robert was an only child. Eleanor had more children, but tragically many of them died young so that for years William would not have had any siblings either. This explains why there were a number of photos of the three of them, but none of any other children.

After discovering this I was able to trace a good number of my father’s DNA matches back to William Menzies, and was able to identify all but a few of the Australian pictures in the album. Unfortunately I’ve had less luck with the Scottish pictures. There are just too many possibilities for who they could be as so many relatives lived in the Greenock/Glasgow area. However I was extremely excited to be able to identify photos from the 1880s through Genealogical research and find another Menzies Uncle.

Here are the rest of the Australian Photos from the Album: