Tangled webs. Image: Su Leslie 2018
“Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice …
Sir Walter Scott (Marmion, 1808), ended the line with “to deceive”, but in the case of my three times great grandfather, Thomas Boswell Bisset (1831-1902), I’m not sure.
Why did the man baptized Thomas Gordon and married under the name Thomas Baswell (sic) Bisset, have his children baptized with the Bisset surname, and yet simultaneously appear in census returns (1841-1881) as Thomas Gordon? (1)
I don’t know the answer, but I’m hoping if I lay out the facts to date, you might have some ideas.
So, to begin at the beginning; which is actually the end
The last official record for Thomas was his death certificate, dated 30 June, 1902. In that, his name was recorded as “Thomas Boswell Bisset or Gordon.” His wife was named as Helen Laing Simpson, his age 70, his occupation carter, and his address 10 Henderson Street, Leven, Fife, Scotland.
Thomas’s father was named as “Thomas Bisset, farmer, deceased” and his mother as “Elizabeth Grieve, afterwards married to Henry Wright, crofter, deceased.” The informant on the record was Thomas’s son, William Reekie Bisset.
At that point, things seemed fairly straightforward. I found only one matching Bisset/Simpson marriage record — in the OPR (old parish registers) for nearby Dysart parish:
31 May 1851 Thomas Baswell Bisset, labourer, son of Archibald B. and Helen Simpson, daughter of John S. both of this parish, were contracted and after proclamation married.
This matched other information I had (2), except that Thomas’s father was named as Archibald, not Thomas, as on his death certificate.
While I love the detail in historical Scottish death certificates, they’re obviously not self-reported, so I assumed that son William simply didn’t know his grandfather’s name was Archibald.
Surely Thomas’s birth record would clear things up
In both the 1891 and 1901 census, Thomas reported his age as consistent with a birth year of 1831, and his birthplace as Wemyss parish in Fife.
Eighteen boys named Thomas Bisset (or variations on either of those names) had their birth recorded in Scotland between 1820-1840 (allowing for a wide margin around 1831), but none had parents named Thomas and Elizabeth or Archibald and Elizabeth, or any likely variation on them (3).
Changing the surname to Gordon produced 68 results. Fourteen had fathers named Thomas, but not mothers named Elizabeth (or variants); and none had fathers called Archibald. But I did find a Thomas Gordon, born to John Gordon and Elizabeth Grieve. The birth was recorded in 1831, in Wemyss parish, Fife.
The record says “May 16 Thomas natural son of John Gordon and Elizabeth Grieve in Kirkland.” (2)
The year and place of of birth and mother’s name matched Thomas’s death certificate; but now I had to add John Gordon to the list of Thomas’s recorded fathers.
One of those weird light-bulb moments
I had found Thomas Bisset easily in the 1891 and 1901 censuses, but in none prior to that. Confused, I’d tried searching instead for some of his children. I knew he and Helen had a son named William, and daughters Barbara, Charlotte and Tomina (listed in the 1891 census). In the statutory birth records, I found a total of 14 children born to Thomas and Helen: Margaret, Henry, Thomas Boswell, Elizabeth, Helen, John, William Reekie, Rachel, Jane, Barbara, Catherine, Charlotte, Tomina Howden and David. (4)
Knowing the children’s names, and that they were all born in the Leven, Fife, didn’t help me find census records for the family. So, although it seemed unlikely, I searched using the surname Gordon.
Et voila!
The 1871 and 1881 censuses show the entire Bisset/Gordon family living in Henderson Street. In the 1861 census Thomas is absent, but Helen is listed as “wife of Head”, so presumably Thomas was simply away from home on census night.
Why Gordon?
When Thomas married Helen in 1851, he did so as Thomas Bisset. All his children had the Bisset surname and he completed the 1891 and 1901 census returns as Thomas B. How could he simultaneously be a Gordon?
Thomas and Helen married just weeks after the 1851 census was taken, so I wondered if finding him on the eve of his marriage might help.
I found a record for Helen Simpson, in Dysart, living with her father John Simpson, 50, handloom weaver; her mother, Janet, age 50; and four siblings, Margaret, John, Charles and David.
This was where their marriage took place, so I assumed that Thomas Bisset/Gordon probably lived nearby. A search produced three Thomas Gordons around the right age, and only one in Dysart; a 20 year old carter living as a boarder with Henry Wright, his wife Elizabeth and their children William, Jessie and Rachel.
The right Wright?
Could this be the Henry Wright named on Thomas’s death certificate as his mother’s husband?
I believe so. I found an OPR marriage record (November 1839) that matches (the only Wright/Grieve in the time-frame), a death certificate for Elizabeth Wright nee Grieve, and birth records for four children born to the couple: William b. 1840; Helen, b. 1842 (d. 1846); Janet b. 1845; and another Helen b. 1849.
If the 1851 census record IS for the man I know as Thomas Bisset, he was living as Thomas Gordon a few weeks before his marriage, which took place in his local church.
At this point I have so many questions.
Why did Thomas Gordon use a different name when he married?
Why did he complete census returns with his old name? Especially as his wife and kids WERE by birth/marriage Bissets. Did they even know how the returns were being recorded?
And most importantly, why Bisset? Why not Gordon, or Grieve, or Wright?
Bisset is a name used extensively in my mother’s family; my grandmother was Margaret Simpson Bisset Cruden, her mother Catherine Simpson Bisset Black and her mother was Thomas Boswell Bisset‘s daughter Margaret Simpson Bisset. They were named to honour parents and grandparents, so I really need to know who Mr Bisset was and why Thomas wanted his name.
Any thoughts, ideas and suggestions about how to proceed? I would welcome them.
Great, great grandparents in Dysart Cemetery, Fife, Scotland.
- The entire Gordon/Bisset family used the Gordon surname in each of the 1861, 1871 and 1881 censuses, despite the children all being baptised Bisset.
- Helen’s death certificate, issued in 1914, named her parents as John Simpson and Janet Whittock, and I had census records that connected Helen to John and Janet.
- Given that OPRs weren’t always meticulously well-kept (or preserved) it is possible that Thomas was born to a couple called Archibald Bisset and Elizabeth Grieve or Thomas Bisset and Elizabeth Grieve and either it wasn’t recorded, or the record has disappeared or been really weirdly indexed. If that’s the case, I will probably never know.
- Although Thomas and Helen were married in 1851, I couldn’t find any birth records prior to 1856, but these would have been parish records, and some parishes were better at record-keeping than others. I know that the couple did have at least one other child — Boswell — born in 1854, as I found a death record for him dated 1857. Four of the other children; Thomas Boswell, Elizabeth, John and David also died in childhood.
Shaking the tree 