Where did Ann go?

Brick walls are to say the least, incredibly frustrating! And I have a few of them in my tree. They can be disheartening, and I have, like most, put them on the back burner, with the idea to come back to it at a later date.  So, with that in mind, I will introduce you to Ann MCLAREN, my 3 x great grandmother.

Ann and her twin sister were born on the 27 September 1838, in the parish of Urquhart and Glenmoriston in Inverness-shire, to Neil MCLAREN and Isabella MCKENZIE.

In 1851 the family were living at 6 Tomnahurich Street in Inverness.  Neil is listed as a widow, so Isabella had died somewhere between the birth of youngest daughter Eliza (1847) and the census in 1851.

In 1871 Ann gave birth to daughter Isabella, at Dunain Croy Inverness-shire.

I haven’t found her in the 1861 or 1871 census, but did find her in the 1881 census, living in Advie.  She and daughter Isabella, were lodging with Jane Grant at Straanmore in Advie. Ann is working as a sick nurse.

After this date, Ann vanishes. I can’t find her in the 1891 census. On daughter Isabella’s marriage record, in 1895, she is not listed as deceased. I spent a lot of time searching for Ann, in census records and looking for her death record, after 1895. She was nowhere to be found, could she have emigrated like twin sister Catherine? possibly but I couldn’t find a record of that either.  So, there it was, my brick wall, what happened to Ann?

At this point I moved on to other areas of the family tree, and didn’t re-look at this brick wall for over 10 years. I started looking back at Ann after I had a DNA match to Catherine’s descendants.

Whilst going over what little records I had found for Ann that I realized I had made a crucial error!  I had assumed that Ann was still alive when Isabella got married. So, I searched for her death in Scotland between the census years of 1881 and 1891.  This gave me seven results, but only one of them was close to where her daughter was living.

There she was. Ann McLaren was a pauper, the daughter of Neil and Isabella McLaren. She died in 1888 from phthisis pulmonalis in Grantown. Phthisis pulmonalis, would have also been known as consumption, nowadays it would be known as pulmonary tuberculosis. I am confident, with the documents I already have, that this is the right Ann. So, what did I learn?  I learnt that assuming is deadly to your research. Re-look at the research you already have to see if you have missed anything. Fresh eyes always helps. Always come back to your brick wall, because you never know what little detail might lead to a breakthrough.