Monday, January 30, 2012

Mystery Monday - Did James R. McRae Have Another Child?

Thanks to my blog, I finally came into contact with another descendant of James McRae and Maria Horne (whom are the parents of James R. McRae, my great-great grandfather).

And so we started talking about different things regarding the McRae family history and one of the things she mentioned was that James R. and his first wife, Katherine Morrison, might have had another child named James who died at infancy on November 30, 1874 in Boston.

I had assumed I found all of James' children so when I heard this, I was quite surprised. I viewed the death record of the infant on familysearch.org and saw that it lists the parents as James McRae and Catherine McRae. Immediately right there, that makes it hard to confirm if the child is indeed the son of my James because Catherine's maiden name is not given and there easily could have been another couple named James and Catherine McRae living in Boston at the time.

The birthplaces of the parents are both listed as Halifax, Massachusetts. James R. McRae and Katherine Morrison were both born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I took a closer look at the actual death record and it looks as though the "MA" is actually "NS". This is something that can be debated.

In 1869, James and Katherine had a son, Edward, and in 1876, they had another son, Rufus. Both Edward and Rufus' death records list their birthplaces as Boston. Infant James was born in between Edward and Rufus.

While it is entirely possible that infant James really was the son of James R. McRae and Katherine Morrison, I don't want to assume anything without definite proof. Oddly enough, a birth certificate can't be found for him on familysearch, whether that means he was only given a death record or it simply isn't available online.

To see the death record for the infant, click here.

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