Any ideas how to confirm who this person is?

[Saker]

My ancestor was Scottish but moved to Wales and married in Wales. He has a fairly common Scottish name, William Knox, but it is rare in Wales at that time. I can find him on all the censuses in Wales, but it only ever says he comes from Scotland without any specific place named. And in Scotland there are lots of William Knoxes. I can also find from his marriage certificate that his father's name is William, and he is an agricultural labourer, which narrows it down a bit but unfortunately he was born before registration so the records could be patchy too.

So I had the idea of looking for any other people by the name of Knox in South Wales, as in my experience, often brothers or family members migrate together. I can find a George Knox, also with a father, William, in agriculture, who comes from Edinburgh or Edinburgh area. There a lot fewer George Knoxes than there are Williams so I am reasonably confident I can find George in the Scottish records and he does have a brother called William of the right age.

However I have nothing to link the two Knoxes together in Wales. They are both in South Wales, but not the same area. It could just be coincidence that they are both there at the same time and that they are not related at all.

Does anyone have any suggestions of anything else I can look for to either tie them together or find the date of birth of William in Wales or any other means of proving who he is?

Thank you if you got to the end of this!

Thank you, I did see them - but I can't be 100% sure he was born in 1834 as I'm only getting it off the census, so you need to take in at least 1833 and 1835 also. Then registration wasn't required at that time, so there may be other William Knoxes where the baptism record has been lost or destroyed or was never done for some reason.

If he is the brother of the George Knox from Edinburgh I think his baptism record would be the one in Channelkirk born 30/9/1833 with parents William and Margaret. But I need a way to prove he is the brother of the George Knox or the son of those parents. Another piece of circumstantial evidence is that his first daughter is called Margaret.

I would suggest looking at his children's names and seeing if they match his parents names as grandchildren were often named after their grandparents. That's how I solved a 20 year mystery in my family. Do you have any other documents relating to him? Have you found his marriage in parish registers for example? This might give more info.

If there are any children for the two 'brothers' do they each follow the 'Scottish naming pattern' at all?
Might be a bit tenuous but everh little helps!

Yes I did notice that his daughter was called Margaret which might reflect his mother being Margaret and it is the case that the children of both him and George have names in common with the siblings of the generation above. I think that it all supports a link but they are quite common names like John and Thomas so it is hard to say it proves it.
I have seen the parish record of the marriage and that's how I know that his father is William and an agricultural labourer. In George's second marriage, the father is also William and an agricultural bailiff. I can't find a parish record for George's first marriage. On William's marriage certificate the witnesses are Owens (wife's relative) and John Thomas! A nice rare name for a witness 😆

What is the Scottish naming pattern? I don't know that. 😀

Saker just said the same thing!!
Hope I get this right!

1st son named after fathers father.
1st daughter named after mothers mother.
2nd son named after mothers father
2nd daughter named after fathers mother
3rd son named after fathers grandfather
3rd daughter.. mothers grandmother
4th son..mothers grandfather

Etc etc etc

Sometimes favourite uncles/aunts names were used for 3rd child ( children) onwards.
And if any children died young they would re-use the name.. brutal by todays standard but keeping the names going was seen to be very important... and kept the families identity/ oral history...

Apologies it was 'MarxhionessofMayhem' who mentioned the naming pattern.. but not in so many words!

I have a troublesome couple like this. I've been working with a distant relative (we seem to be connected through the male of the couple)

I find them on the 1871 census as an alleged married couple, but going back to the previous census, when they'd have been late teens, we have drawn blanks

On their child's birth certificate her surname is given, but I can't find anyone who matches on name and age in the area she says she comes from. Can't find a match in the area they lived in when the child was born.
Can't find a marriage certificate. Can't find a record of any banns.
Her death certificate gives a different age to that indicated on the census.
After she died, he remarried. The marriage certificate gives his father's name. Needless to say, nobody matching those criteria in the area he says he's from show up.When he died, his age was also different to that given on the census.

As has been suggested to OP, the only thing that seems to be a possibility is to work on a process of elimination.

However at thos point I am wondering if one or both of them lied about their name. I'm also wondering if the child wasn't his. My reason being that they had no other children. Whilst there is a birth certificate, there's no baptism, which might tie in with not being married.

I had a look on ScotlandsPeople, found four William Knox with a William Know father in 1833-1835. Then looked on Ancestry, looked at at a few William Knox s but most them had evidence of being Scotland from census records of 1851, 1861 and onwards. I found one family with William and George siblings, cross checked this back on ScotlandsPeople and found William Knox and Margaret Middlemas (married 21/05/1824) had five children between 1826 and 1835, including George born / baptised in 1827 and William in 1833. All events in Channelkirk.
So there is a family with these siblings, but what I haven't done is go back to Ancestry to cross check them with the censuses to see if they move from Scotland to Wales - so I hope I haven't messed up!
I have attached pic of ScotlandsPeople search for William and will try to add the one with the other children.

Here are the siblings

Good luck with your search. My husband is adopted. He did a dna test (bloody good luck to anyone who attempts to clone him from his dna, one is quite enough). We found lots of relatives that helped us narrow down which “Donald McDonald” from Scotland we needed more info on.

Ah that's really interesting. I will definitely follow that up. I need to do a bit more research as to who grandparents might be if I am right about my William Knox.

Thank you for this. Yes this is the family I had already narrowed it down to and I think this is pretty likely to be the family of George Knox who moved to Wales. However what I am trying to find is some way of proving my William Knox in Wales is the brother of this George as they are not linked in any way in Wales and live in different areas of South Wales. It could just be coincidence that they are both there at the same time, or they could be cousins or something. There is some other circumstantial evidence like the names of children, but nothing conclusive. However I am going to look at the Scottish naming thing.

It is also quite hard to cross check whether William then left Scotland. There seem to be at least two Williams who come from that area and were born in 1834 in the census and once they leave their parents it is hard to work out which one is which.

There is a William born in Humbie in 1834 who is in Cranston in the 1891 census. If that is the one baptised in Channelkirk then that would disprove my theory that he is the one in Wales. There is also a William Knox in the 1841 census with mother Jean born in Midlothian and living in Cranston and he could be the one in the 1891 census. There are also other possible contenders with slightly different birth dates e.g. 1831, 1835.

I had a look at the Scottish naming system for William Knox's family. I found a slightly different version of it on Findmypast:

The traditional patterns used when naming Scottish boys were as follows:

• The family's first son was named after his paternal grandfather
• The second son was named after his maternal grandfather
• The third son was usually named after his father

Scottish girls' naming patternsSimilarly, for girls, it is common to see:

• The family's first daughter was named after her maternal grandmother
• The second daughter was named after the paternal grandmother
• The third daughter of the family was named after her mother.

It actually fits quite well! This is for anyone who has followed thus far and is interested, but don't bother if you're not!
William Knox parents could be William and Margaret and Mary's parents were William and Ann.

So William Knox married Mary Owen and their children were:
Margaret Ann
Martha Jane
William
John
Mary Owen
Thomas
Esther
George
James
Agnes

The first daughter seems to be named after both her grandmothers together.
The first son is conveniently named after both grandfathers and his father as they are all called William!
The third daughter is obviously named after her mother.

After that it is less obvious, but I think that John is the paternal great grandfather though he is also a brother of the mother. Martha, Thomas, Ann, John and William are all siblings of Mary and George, John and Thomas are all siblings of William.

George Knox married twice and married late so he only had two children by his second wife.

George Ernest
Margaret Sybil.
His second wife already had a son named William so he couldn't have used his father's name for his first born son, but interestingly he also used Margaret for his first daughter.

So it definitely adds to the evidence though obviously I know for sure I have the right family for Mary Owen so it is not surprising to find children named after her side of the family. I do think the Margaret for the first born daughter of William and George might be significant though.

It is just fascinating isn't it?
TOTALLY addictive!
😄

It really is! Thanks for your information about the naming pattern though, because I didn't know that at all, and added to everything else, makes me feel reasonably confident that I have got the right person.