South Leith
The parish this archive called untranscribed holds her baptism, and it names her father and her mother.
South Leith has been the standing excuse of this archive. Jean Ward's baptism was out of reach; the parish was not transcribed; there was nothing to be done. It is transcribed, it names both her parents, and it took one search.
The entry
| Name | JEAN WARD |
| Baptised | 19 JULY 1754 |
| Place | SOUTH LEITH, MIDLOTHIAN, SCOTLAND |
| Father | JOSEPH WARD |
| Mother | MARTHA GARDEN |
- The parish. South Leith — the parish the family tree has always named, and which this archive has repeatedly reported as untranscribed and therefore untestable.
- The year. 1754. The tree says 1754. Her burial at Chatham in March 1823 gives her age as 66, which implies about 1756 — a stated age two years adrift, which is ordinary.
- And a naming pattern. Her father was JOSEPH. The first child she and Robert D'Arcy baptised at Portsea, in March 1780, was JOSEPH. Scottish naming custom gave a second son the maternal grandfather's name, and this is what that looks like from the outside.
The index does not give an occupation or a residence, and there is more than one Jean Ward in Midlothian — three marriages are linked to this entry, all in 1777, none of which can be hers, since she married Robert D'Arcy at Portsea in June 1779. The parish, the year and the forename of her eldest son are what carry the identification.
And her parents' marriage, seven years before
JOSEPH WARD married MARTH[A] GAIRDEN at SOUTH LEITH on 27 OCTOBER 1747 · her father WILLIAM GAIRDEN.
Seven years before Jean was christened in the same parish. It confirms her mother's surname in the spelling the Scots used — Gairden for Garden — and it gives a further generation: WILLIAM GAIRDEN, Jean Ward's maternal grandfather, and the oldest Scot this archive holds.
named as Martha's father in 1747 — the deepest Scot here
South Leith, 27 October 1747
baptised South Leith, 19 July 1754
Portsea St Mary, 21 June 1779
baptised Portsea, 19 March 1780 — named for his mother's father
Catherine Cotton, by contrast, still goes nowhere. Searched across the whole of Gloucestershire for a birth between 1733 and 1757: she appears only to marry Thomas Saniger at Berkeley in April 1769. Two women married into this family in the same decade; one has just yielded three generations and the other has yielded none. The Sanigers →
And George Pitt D'Arcy was in the Peninsula.
The archive knows George Pitt D'Arcy as “Bt: Major 39th Foot” in the Chatham baptism register of March 1826, and as the officer commanding the 39th detachment aboard the convict ship England a fortnight later. He is in the Peninsular War officers' roll for 1808, in the same regiment — the 39th Foot.
What both of these have in common
Two of this site's longest-standing “cannot be reached” statements were wrong on the same afternoon. South Leith is indexed. The Berkeley register after 1677 is indexed. In both cases the archive had measured the free sources honestly and then quietly widened the conclusion from “not here” to “not anywhere”.
Jean Ward → · Her husband's career → · Where she is buried →