Scattered Stones : Scattered Fates
Scattered Fates
The Final Accounting of George Robertson's Children
"They scattered like seeds in the wind—some taking root in Brooklyn's granite, others drifting to Liverpool's docks, still others clinging to the Scottish soil where they were born. By 1921, only one remained."
The ones who stayed
Brooklyn & beyond
The Liverpool branch
The Ones Who Stayed
Not all of George Robertson's children crossed the ocean. While David, Clementina, William Fraser, and Isabella built their lives in Brooklyn, and Mary Ann wandered across Canada, and James found his way to Liverpool—three of the ten children remained in Scotland, living out their days within a few miles of where they were born.
John Robertson
John Robertson, the fourth child, married young. On November 24, 1865—the same year his sister Mary Ann married Alexander McNab—John wed Helen (Ellen) McIntyre at Broughty Ferry, in the parish of Dundee. He was twenty years old, working as a clerk. The marriage register notes that his brother David Robertson served as witness—one of the last documented moments the brothers shared before David's emigration to Brooklyn four years later.
John and Ellen's first child, George—named for John's father—was born on May 22, 1866, at Brook Street in Broughty Ferry. The birth record shows John had become a "Linen Yarn Bleacher," working in the textile industry that dominated the Dundee area. By 1871, the young family was living at 88 Meadow Wynd in Dundee. John was twenty-four, listed as a labourer, boarding with his wife and five-year-old son George.
After 1871, John Robertson himself disappears from the records—whether he died young, emigrated, or simply moved beyond the reach of the documents that survive, we cannot say. But his son George did not disappear. And through George, we can trace John's line forward for another century.
George Robertson—John's son, named for his grandfather the mason—returned to the family's ancestral territory. He settled at "Tain Place, Rattray," just outside Blairgowrie where his grandparents had raised their ten children. He married Mary Ann Butchart, and together they had at least four children: Mary Ann (born 1892, who married and became Mary Ann Reid), Jean (1916–1993, who married and became Jean Dunbar), Robina (died 1997, who married Jock Martin), and John (died 1970).
George Robertson died on July 4, 1944—exactly seventy-two years after his grandfather George the mason had died of sunstroke in Brooklyn. Unlike George the mason and Margaret Paterson, who lie in unmarked graves at Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn, their grandson George has a proper family monument in Scotland. The Robertson name endured in Perthshire, carried forward by descendants who never crossed the Atlantic.
Margaret Robertson
Margaret Robertson, the fifth child, chose a different path. In 1881, she was living in Blairgowrie—the town where she had grown up, where her parents had raised their ten children, where her father had worked as a mason for thirty years. But Margaret was not a wife or mother. She was a servant.
The 1881 census finds her at Bank Building, in the household of William Shaw, a writer and banker. Margaret Robertson, age thirty, unmarried, working as a "Tablemaid"—setting tables, serving meals, clearing dishes in a prosperous household. Her birthplace is recorded as Bendochy, the parish where her grandparents Duncan and Jean had lived, where her father George had been baptized in 1809.
Margaret's later fate remains unknown. She may be the "Margaret Robinson" buried at Evergreens Cemetery in Brooklyn on July 24, 1892—just two days after her mother Margaret Paterson Robertson died at 194 Nelson Street. The timing is suggestive: a daughter coming to be with her dying mother, only to die herself within days. But without more evidence, this remains speculation.
Alexander Robertson
Alexander Robertson, the eighth child, was the last of the Scottish-bound children whose fate we can trace with certainty. Born October 14, 1856, he never married, never had children, never left Scotland. The 1901 census finds him at 13 Arklay Street in Dundee, age forty-four, working as a "Factory Tenter"—a textile worker who tended the frames that stretched and dried cloth in Dundee's famous jute mills.
Alexander was boarding with the Rae family—Clark S. Rae, age sixty-two, and his sons and grandsons. It was a working-class household in an industrial city, a world away from the Brooklyn brownstones where his siblings had settled.
Three months after that census was taken, Alexander Robertson was dead. He died on April 5, 1901, in Perth, at the age of forty-four. The cause of death is not recorded in the documents we have. He was buried somewhere in Scotland—not at Evergreens Cemetery with his parents and sisters, but in the country where he had spent his entire life.
The Liverpool Branch
Of all the Robertson children, James took the most unexpected path. While his siblings streamed toward Brooklyn or stayed rooted in Scotland, James Penmuire Patterson Robertson—the second child, baptized May 31, 1841, in Blairgowrie—found his way to Liverpool, England, by way of Canada.
The English census records tell a remarkable story. In 1891, James appears in Liverpool, age thirty-eight, working as a "Gamekeeper." His birthplace is recorded not as Scotland, but as "Canada." By 1901, the details had sharpened: "Canada Ontario." Somewhere in his youth or early adulthood, James had emigrated to Canada—perhaps around the same time his sister Mary Ann was beginning her own Canadian odyssey—and then crossed the Atlantic again, this time to England.
James married twice. His first wife, possibly Mary Kennett, gave him at least two daughters: Rose Ann (baptized 1875 in Liverpool) and Mary Jane (baptized 1876). Both baptism records list James's occupation as "Game Keeper"—a man who managed hunting grounds for wealthy landowners, protecting game birds and prosecuting poachers. It was respectable outdoor work, far removed from the stone masonry of his father or the iron moulding of his brother William Fraser.
After his first wife's death, James married Martha Williamson Bates on December 7, 1886. Both were widowed. Together they would have at least nine more children, including sons James Penmuire (1889), John Robert Duncan (1894, died young), Charles Augustus Roper Derby (1896, died young), John Charles (1899), and Isaac Albert Glover (1900). The elaborate middle names suggest a man with aspirations—or perhaps simply a love of naming.
By 1901, James was listed as "Gamekeeper" in West Derby, Liverpool, age fifty, with his wife Martha and their growing family. DNA matches through multiple descendants confirm these lines connect back to the Robertson family of Blairgowrie.
James died around 1906, though the exact date and place remain unverified. He never saw Brooklyn, never reunited with the siblings who had crossed to America. His branch of the family would remain English, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren scattered across the United Kingdom.
The Canadian Wanderer
Mary Ann Robertson, the firstborn child of George and Margaret, lived the longest and traveled the farthest of any of the ten siblings. Her journey would span two countries, five provinces or states, and eighty-two years.
She married Alexander McNab on April 21, 1865, at Blairgowrie—a fireman from Dundee, son of a labourer. But Mary Ann had already known heartbreak. In 1858, seven years before her marriage, she had given birth to a daughter, Margaret Ann, out of wedlock. The birth record shows her mother—Margaret Paterson Robertson—present at the birth, standing by her unwed daughter. That child, Margaret Ann, would later appear in the 1871 census living with her grandparents George and Margaret in Blairgowrie, raised as part of their household while Mary Ann built a new life elsewhere.
After her marriage, Mary Ann and Alexander began their Canadian odyssey. A child was born in Nova Scotia. Another in Winnipeg. By 1877, they were in Whitby, Ontario, where daughter Ellen Elizabeth was born. The 1881 census finds them in Manitoba. By 1906, they had reached Saskatchewan, where Mary Ann appears living with the Coleman family—perhaps relatives, perhaps simply fellow Scots on the prairie.
Alexander McNab died sometime before 1910, leaving Mary Ann a widow. And then, after decades of wandering westward across Canada, she reversed course. The 1920 census finds Mary Ann McNab in Harrison, New Jersey—just across the Hudson River from Brooklyn, where her brother David had settled fifty years earlier, where her mother had died in 1892, where her sisters Clementina and Isabella had raised their families.
She was eighty-one years old, a widow, living alone. The census records that she had borne four children, three of whom were still living.
Mary Ann Robertson McNab died on November 30, 1921, in Harrison, New Jersey. She was eighty-two years old—the last surviving child of George Robertson and Margaret Paterson. She had outlived all nine of her siblings.
With Mary Ann's death, the generation that had been scattered like stones across two continents finally came to rest.
The One Still Lost
Of the ten children born to George Robertson and Margaret Paterson, nine can now be traced through the records. But Jean Robertson, the ninth child, born around 1859 in Blairgowrie, remains lost.
She appears in the 1861 census as a toddler, in the 1871 census as a twelve-year-old, living with her parents and siblings in Blairgowrie. And then—nothing. No marriage record. No death record. No emigration record. No census entry that can be definitively linked to her.
Jean Robertson (c. 1859–?)
Jean may have died young, in the years between censuses when so many children slipped away without leaving a trace. She may have married under a name we haven't yet connected to her. She may have emigrated—to America, to Canada, to Australia—and lived out her life under a married name in records not yet searched. Or she may be hiding in plain sight, in a document we've already seen but failed to recognize.
The search continues.
The Ten Children: Final Accounting
George Robertson and Margaret Paterson raised ten children in Blairgowrie, Scotland. Here is what became of them:
The Story Continues: David Paterson Robertson was the first to cross the Atlantic, establishing the Brooklyn beachhead that others would follow. But his own journey didn't end in Brooklyn—it continued south to Georgia, where he disappeared from the records around 1910. Episode 6: The Stone Cutter's Journey.
Evidence Analysis
Tracing the scattered fates of ten siblings across three countries and six decades requires correlating records from multiple archives—Scottish, English, Canadian, and American. Several methodological points emerge from this analysis.
John's Line Proven Through Gravestone
The Robertson family gravestone in Rattray provides crucial evidence linking John Robertson (married 1865) to his son George (1866–1944) and grandson's family. Combined with the 1866 birth record naming John as father, this creates a documented line from George the mason through to 1997—four generations on one stone.
James's Canadian Birthplace
The 1891 and 1901 English censuses record James as born in "Canada" and "Canada Ontario" respectively—despite his 1841 baptism in Blairgowrie. This likely indicates he emigrated to Canada as a young adult, spent significant time there, and later crossed to England. His children's Liverpool baptisms (1875, 1876) establish his presence in England by the mid-1870s.
Mary Ann's Wandering Path
Canadian census records (1881 Manitoba, 1906 Saskatchewan) and vital records (1877 Ontario birth) trace Mary Ann's westward migration across Canada. Her appearance in the 1920 New Jersey census represents a dramatic reversal—after decades moving west, she finally came east to be near her Brooklyn siblings.
Alexander's Death Timing
The 1901 census was taken in April; Alexander Robertson died on April 5, 1901. This census entry is likely his final documented appearance, capturing his life as a factory worker in Dundee's jute mills just weeks—or possibly days—before his death.
DNA Confirmation
DNA matches through multiple descendants of James Robertson (Liverpool branch) confirm his connection to the Robertson family of Blairgowrie. This genetic evidence supports the documentary chain linking the English gamekeeper to George and Margaret's second child.
The Mystery of Jean
Jean Robertson appears in the 1861 and 1871 censuses as a child in her parents' household, then vanishes. Common explanations include death between censuses (poorly recorded in this era), marriage under an unidentified surname, or emigration. Without a death record, marriage record, or later census identification, her fate remains the single unresolved mystery among the ten children.
Primary Source Documents
The following documents trace the scattered fates of George Robertson's ten children across Scotland, England, Canada, and America.
🏴 The Ones Who Stayed — Scotland
🏴 The Liverpool Branch — James
🇨🇦 🇺🇸 The Canadian Wanderer — Mary Ann
Sources
Scottish Records:
1865 Marriage Register, Broughty Ferry (John Robertson and Ellen McTie), Statutory Registers Marriages 282/1X 14. National Records of Scotland.
1866 Birth Register, Monifieth (George Robertson, son of John), Statutory Registers Births 310/103. National Records of Scotland.
1871 Scotland Census, Dundee, 282/2 12/34, Page 34 (John Robertson household). National Records of Scotland.
Robertson Family Gravestone, Rattray, Perthshire (George Robertson 1866–1944, Mary Ann Butchart 1869–1942, John Robertson d.1970, Robina Robertson Martin d.1997). Find A Grave.
1881 Scotland Census, Blairgowrie, 335/4/30, Page 10 (Margaret Robertson, servant). National Records of Scotland.
1901 Scotland Census, Dundee, St Andrew, 282/4, Schedule 139 (Alexander Robertson). National Records of Scotland.
1865 Marriage Register, Blairgowrie (Mary Ann Robertson and Alexander McNab). National Records of Scotland.
English Records:
1875 Baptism Register, Liverpool (Rose Ann Robertson). Liverpool Record Office.
1876 Baptism Register, Liverpool (Mary Jane Robertson). Liverpool Record Office.
1886 Marriage Register, Liverpool (James P. Robertson and Martha Williamson Bates). General Register Office.
1891 England Census, Liverpool (James P. Robertson household).
1901 England Census, West Derby, Liverpool (James P. Robertson household).
Canadian Records:
1881 Census of Canada, Manitoba (Mary Ann McNab household). Library and Archives Canada.
1906 Census of Canada, Saskatchewan (Mary Ann McNab with Coleman family). Library and Archives Canada.
American Records:
1920 U.S. Census, Harrison, Hudson County, New Jersey (Mary Ann McNab).
New Jersey Death Index, 1921 (Mary Ann McNab, Harrison).
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