January 30th

Just one entry for today.  It concerns your 3x great grandfather, James Coull.

Your mother is me

My mother is Grandma

Grandma's mother was Betsy West

Great Grandma Betsy's mother was Jemima Coull

Great great Grandmother Jemima's father was James Coull - your great great great grandfather!

So, on this day in 1855 James Coull died in Ferryden.  As I may have mentioned before, the records from that year are quite detailed because it was the first year of civil registration.  This was helpful for not only providing me with more information than usual but also confirming that I had the correct person.  As you know Coull is a very common name in the fishing village of Ferryden.

James was a fisherman and lived in Ferryden for the whole of his life.  Unfortunately it wasn't a long life.  He was 40 years old when he died.  His wife was Elizabeth (Betsey) Pert (another of the common names of Ferryden).  They had a daughter Grace but at the time of James' death Elizabeth was pregnant with their second child.  That child was born 5 months later - this was Jemima, your 2xgreat grandmother.

Cause of death:  Fever which had lasted ten days.  He is buried in Rossie Island Cemetery just outside Ferryden.

Addendum:  I was checking other peoples trees on ancestry which have our James Coull on them and I found that some have him having an earlier marriage which produced three children.  I actually find this unlikely and suspect it may be the result of lazy research practices.  But, be that as it may, one of the tree owners has been identified as a cousin of sorts through our DNA so I've sent him a note to see what further information he can share with me.