| Notes |
- Family #62.
David/ Janet Mathewson’s fourth surviving son, Robert b.1831, a coal miner in Methilhill, married
Isabella Russell in 1858. They had two children, David b. 1860 and Catherine Mitchell b.1863. Both parents died in 1871, of some epidemic: according to the Statutory Register of Deaths Index, Robert died in Wemyss in 1871, age 40, and Isabella age 33. in the 1881 census David and Catherine appear as the adopted children of Thomas Dunsire and Catherine Anderson - Thomas being a second cousin, of the John/ Christian Buchan line. Robert’s younger brother James (b.1834) lived next door, but presumably was not in a position to take in the orphans. But in fact, Thomas’ wife Catherine was a FIRST cousin of Robert’s wife: maybe that was the more important relationship.
David b.1860, the adopted boy, married Sarah Thomson of Buckhaven in 1887. He was a butcher in East Wemyss, with a shop in Back Dykes, and then in Main Street. Later he bred pigs in Dairsie, and spent a period in Canada, They had eight children, as shown alongside. Sarah suffered from diabetes and died in 1920; David died in 1945, age 84. My informant, the late David Dunsire of East Wemyss (b.1922, d.1998), was the son of Alexander (m. Daisy Pryde), and wrote up the story in a booklet The Dunsires of Wemyss. Robert, ‘a bit of a black sheep’, died in Chicago age 76, in 1964. In East Wemyss cemetery are buried Alexander (d.1953 age 56) and his wife ‘Daisy’ Pryde (d.1982). Another stone commemorates John Russell, always known as ‘Russ’, who was a radio operator and ‘ham’, d.1968; and his sister Annie Thomson Dunsire, d.1971. David b.1922 married Catherine Ness in 1953: they had three children, Robert, David and Jennifer - now also married with their own children.
NB There were two Robert Dunsire babies christened in Wemyss on the same day, 23 January 1831. The other was the last child of Thomas Dunsire b.1790 and Margaret Wilson b.1790, m.11 October 1811.
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1830 - 1871 (40 years)