Family:George Wilson and Isabella Wilson (1)

The birth of Samuel, the first child, is confirmed to be more than a year before the marriage. The baptism of Samuel is definitely out-of-place in the Register. Kirk Session records for Colvend have not been searched for any evidence of the couple being compered.

The baptisms of the first four children of George and Isabella Wilson all state that the family home was Knockhourie in Colvend and Southwick Parish. Knockhourie has been found on the Ordnance Survey Six-Inch to the Mile series of 1843-1882 (provided online by the National Library of Scotland) under the name Knockhooly. It is to the east of the hamlet of Caulkerbush on the main road between the villages of Colvend and Kirkbean. Co-ordinates are 54.89728N,3.67224W. This is very close to where the other Wilson and Gibson families of Colvend were located.

The baptims of the next two sons occurred in the parish of Kirkpatrick-Durham where the family were living at Barncalzie. The parish register shows this as a baptisms for both George and Thomas at the same time. The next son, William, has not been found in the baptisms for any parish.

Many place names found on 18th and 19th century documents from this part of Scotland are names of farms or small holdings. Often, farms included separate cottages or bothies for the workforce and a "big house" for the farm owner or chief tenant. Knockhourie or Knockhooly was home for two families around 1800.

Family trees on Ancestry, where the family is fairly well documented, state that the Wilsons emigrated to Upper Canada in 1815. More than one emigration scheme was organizing parties of settlers to make the journey in that year. It was also the year of that the Napoleonic Wars finally ended, making ocean travel slightly safer than it had previously been. Lanark County is west and north of Ottawa, and would have been very much "in the bush". The nearest town to the hamlet of Scotch Line, where the family settled permanently, is Perth, Ontario.

1. ↑ England. England Marriages, 1538–1973. (Family Search )
   GS Film numbers 90578, 90579, 90580, 90581.

   13 December 1795. George Wilson and Isabella Wilson married at Saint Cuthbert, Carlisle, Cumberland, England.

   FamilySearch was checked for marriages in both Scotland and England. This was the only one where the names of both bride and groom matched those on baptisms of the children as recorded in two different Scottish parishes. Carlisle is not an exceptional distance from Colvend, but travelling time in the 1790s would probably be about a day in each direction.
   
   The birth/christening dates of the first two children have been noted.