Baffled. Utterly lost.
I'm looking for a David and Catherine (McCharles) McRae, both born in Nova Scotia, who had William on Cape Breton Island, circa 1850 - 1855.
My grandfather was Donald D McRae, born in Nebraska, to Kenneth and Eva (Sparks) McRae circa 1913.
Kenneth was born in 1885 to the above missing William and Emily Jane (Jenkins) McRae, in Nebraska. William had worked on Emily Jane's late husband's (James Grier) farm previously.
I have the marriage license for William (b circa 1850 - 1855) and Emily Jane. It says that William's father's name was David and his mother's name was Catherine (McCharles), and that William was born on Cape Breton Island, and both of his parents were born in Nova Scotia.
And I can't find them. Anywhere. I've spend many days looking: US and Canadian censuses, marriage and birth certificates, local histories, books, immigration lists.
There are several sites that have William born to David and Catherine (McIvers, or McLarke, not McCharles) of Nova Scotia. But I have William's marriage certificate, and it clearly states McCharles for Catherine's maiden name and I haven't found any other evidence of her last name - whatever it was - at all.
There was a lawsuit in which it was claimed that Emily Jane divorced William a couple of years before she died .
One site shows them both dying on August 9, 1894. I don't know if this happened, or if they truly divorced: I can't find any mention of William after the birth of his last child in 1891. Kenneth and his sister Rachel were ultimately raised by his half-sister's husband's (Albert Chambers) family. There were two more boys - William (b. 1888) and John D (b. 1891), but I don't know who raised them.
I need this missing link to work back to Scotland. My great-grandfather Kenneth's brother William (after their father) is on the clan's Honor Roll for WW1. We really do belong to the clan (I've been to Kintail!) but I don't know how -
Query posted by : Theresamcrae
