Friday Finds: Marriage Record of Sarah Craig Buchanan

It’s funny how a record that you dismissed as irrelevant—because it did not pertain to the person you were researching—can abruptly become relevant with additional research.

I viewed the following record on ScotlandsPeople because I was hoping to find information on my ancestress Sarah Craig, wife of James Buchanan. It didn’t pertain and I set it aside. More recently, I researched Alexander Buchanan as a possible brother to my ancestor James Buchanan. The marriage record of Sarah Craig Buchanan became relevant because she was the daughter of Alexander Buchanan and his wife Elizabeth Kelly… and likely niece to James Buchanan and his wife Sarah Craig, quite likely her namesake.

Marriage record for James Sands and Sarah Craig Buchanan of Cuilhill, Scotland on 12 July 1872.

Lesson learned? When there are similarities of name and place, don’t dismiss a record just because it’s obviously not the same person. Those similarities may point to a possible relationship. Niece, nephew, brother, sister—or even neighbor or best friend. Those relationships may provide clues that help you over a brick wall.

In this case, the records from the families of James and Alexander Buchanan seem to indicate that their family may have been amongst those Irish who left Ireland due to the famine in the 1840s. In their case, instead of immigrating to United States, they sought relief by going to Scotland where they became coal miners.