John McKay Linklater (1827 - abt. 1876)

Born 30 Aug 1827 in Leith, Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland

Ancestors

Husband of Elizabeth Ann (Alexander) Linklater — married before 1850 in New Zealand [uncertain]

Died about Jun 1876 at about age 48 in At Sea

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Dawn Scotting [send private message]

Biography

Included in the attached eight photographs for John McKay Linklater is the story of how I researched and finally proved that John Linklater was the brother of my great-grandfather James Linklater. It is also on my blog here.

Page One

Captain John Linklater, native of Scotland and citizen of Wanganui & Wellington (New Zealand).

I’ve been trying to establish if he was the brother of my great-grandfather James Linklater of Kaiapoi, Canterbury, NZ. There are other Linklater families in NZ who don’t seem to be related to mine so I need to find that link which so far has evaded me!

James Linklater was born in South Leith, Edinburgh on the 28 Oct 1842 & baptised in the North Leith church on the 18 Dec. His parents were Magnus Linklater & May McKay. Their other children were:-

John 1827-1876; Robert Sinclair 1829-1834; Barbara 1832-1834; Jean/Jane 1834-1883; Magnus 1837-1884; Thomas 1840-1874.

John & Magnus have so far eluded me, John since the 1841 census and Magnus the 1851. They both seem to disappear into thin air, no marriages or deaths found for them in Scotland. Then all of a sudden earlier this year as I was Googling the Linklaters up popped a link to a website that had cemetery records from drownings in New Zealand Disasters and Tragedies:-

• Headstone in the Old Wanganui Cemetery:
• June 1876 Captain John Linklater 49 Brig Britain's Pride.

The brigantine Britain's Pride under the command of Captain Linklater left Hobart Town bound for Wellington on 17 June 1876 & was never seen again. On board were the three sons of one family and two daughters of the owner of the ship. When I noticed that the approximate birthdate of this John Linklater was 1827 my heart skipped a beat! Could he possibly be the brother of James I’d been looking for all these years?

I set about to see if I could knock this brick wall down, and so started the most frustrating research I’ve ever undertaken!

First stop was the New Zealand BDM Online website but no luck there, no marriage and of course being lost at sea there was no death certificate. Next stop New Zealand Papers Past where I hit the jackpot! I found many articles on the loss of the ‘Britain’s Pride’ plus lots of other articles on various other ships, plying their trade between various ports in NZ & Australia, where he was the captain. see newspaper article

The ship was heavily laden with timber, shingles, iron palings, posts & rails destined for Queens Wharf in Wellington. From various other newspaper articles the earliest I’ve found John Linklater in NZ was on the schooner Tyne in 1857 although there is one able bodied seaman named John Linklater aged 27 on board the vessel Juno when it arrived in Sydney from Auckland in 1855 see ships' crew list

Page Two

I was mostly interested in the ‘he leaves a widow’ bit! A bit more searching found these from 1893 & 1872:- see 3 newspaper cuttings

Both certificates were ordered that day, but as per normal for me they brought up more questions than answers! see death cert

Emily Louisa aged 22 died from typhoid fever on the 23 Dec 1872 in Wanganui. Unfortunately it was in the early days before parents’ names etc were included. Interesting to note that in the death notice in the newspaper her mother’s name wasn’t mentioned, is there a reason for this I wonder, even if she was her step-mother surely it would say daughter of John & Elizabeth? Or was that just the style of the day? The latter most probably.

Emily Louisa’s name hit me in the eye straight away, that was the name of James’ daughter and the elder sister of my grandmother. As Emily Louisa had died at such a young age I thought perhaps James & his wife Mary Elizabeth had named their next daughter after their niece who had died so tragically? A tenuous link to say the least but I’ll take it! Anyway it spurred me on to further search for the real proof.

I still couldn’t find a marriage between John Linklater and wife Elizabeth Ann in NZ or Australia or even Scotland & England. As he was a sailor I thought perhaps he had met & married her overseas and maybe their daughter had been born overseas too because I couldn’t find a birth for her in NZ either. Then when Elizabeth Ann’s death certificate arrived I thought I had the answer, she had been married before, but no such luck, still no second marriage found for her! 2nd death cert

Keeping in mind that the details on this certificate were given by the undertaker the following is what I managed to find on Elizabeth Ann’s early years before she met John Linklater.

She was born in England about 1824 & had been living in NZ since she was 17 years old. From the names of her parents on the certificate I couldn’t find a death for either of them in NZ but I did find a marriage certificate between a Richard Husband Williams and Elizabeth Ann Alexander:- see marriage cert

Normally on the very early certificates you don’t get a lot of detail but I did have a stroke of luck this time and found that she came from Kent which helped me no end as I probably would have wasted my time looking in Scotland. Then another bit of luck but not until I’d exhausted the searches for the parents’ names of George & Lucy! It wasn’t until I left the father’s name off the search that there she was - Elizabeth Ann Alexander, baptised 17 Oct 1824 at Hollingbourne, Kent, daughter of Samuel & Lucy, Lucy’s maiden name turned out to be Ware not Ward, close but enough to confuse me for 10 mins or so!

Page Three

Elizabeth Ann Alexander had arrived in NZ on board the 'Katherine Stewart Forbes' on the 24 June 1841, aged 17 and with a baby daughter who had been born at sea. Within a year she had married Richard Williams. I don’t know what happened to her daughter after they arrived here, there doesn’t seem to be a birth registered for her in NZ. I haven’t bothered too much about finding her because on Elizabeth Ann’s death certificate it says she had no living issue.

It remains to be seen as to whether Elizabeth Ann was Emily Louisa’s birth mother. Elizabeth Ann’s death cert said she had married John Linklater when she was aged 30 which puts the date at about 1854 and Emily was born in 1850, but with the information being given by the undertaker he might have just guessed at the age she married John, indeed if they were ever legally married (see John's will). She seems to have been living in Wellington when she died in 1893 but was buried in Wanganui, Emily died in Wanganui but that was 21 years earlier. After John died in 1876 Elizabeth might have moved to Wellington, or perhaps they had homes in both places as John seems to have plied between both of them over the years from what I gather from the newspapers. This is an interesting article on the building of the steamship ‘Wanganui’ and it’s arrival in NZ. (with Capt Linklater at the helm) see newspaper article

Page Four

That is where I left my research on Captain John Linklater as I couldn’t seem to go forward from there at that stage. Until a few days ago when I suddenly realised I had completely forgotten to search the NZ Electoral Rolls which are now available on ancestry.com. I had the sinking feeling that it might be too early for him to have shown up before he died in 1876 so I was pleasantly surprised to see just one entry for him and I was able to add yet another piece of circumstantial evidence, still no proof though!

It looks like he owned four properties in Wanganui, one of them being in Campbell St which is the address given on his daughter’s death notice in the newspaper. I also found this advertisement to sell his house just a few weeks after his daughter’s death.

What I was most surprised about was his name - John McKay Linklater - up until now I had no idea he had a middle name so I wasn’t too sure it was him but I realised that the address & his name in both of the other two newspaper articles at least proved they were one and the same person. Unless there was another person with the same name who lived in Wanganui, there was one other person named John McKay Linklater in NZ and he was the first son of my greatgrandfather James, but he wasn’t born until 1873 so he couldn’t have been the John McKay who owned the houses in 1875-6. McKay was the maiden name of James’ mother, May McKay, so it all seems to fit in, James had obviously named his first son after his eldest brother John McKay, or had he? He could have just been given the middle name after his grandmother.

Still no absolute proof but with four pieces of circumstantial evidence, it’s all adding up quite nicely!

1. date of birth.
2. both men had daughters named Louisa Emily.
3. McKay was the maiden name of their mother.
4. James named his first son John McKay.

Also on this page is a letter about the 'Wanganui' sent to the newspaper by James Garland Woon, one of the sons of the Rev William Woon, Wesleyan Methodist Missionary and one of the first missionaries to NZ, dated 4 Sep 1906.

Page Five

While reading through a ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ (Oct 2011) magazine from the library I saw an article on ‘Merchant Navy career records’ and in it was a link to the London Metropolitan Archives where they had an index of the Lloyd’s of London ‘Captains Registers’.

This is where I think I’ve hit the final jackpot!

• Index to the Captains Registers of Lloyd’s of London
• (Guildhall Library MS 18567)
• LINKLATER, John b. Leith 1827 C28531 Leith 1863 vol.9 1863-1864
• LINKLATER, Magnus b. Leith 1836 C19728 Shields 1865 vol.9 1865-1868, 1870, 1872-1873; vol.21 1876

John & Magnus were both brothers of my great-grandfather James, the three of them were born in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland.

John in 1827; Magnus in 1837; James in 1842.

I’m not exactly sure what each line above means but I do know that after their names is given their place & year of birth and they both match. I think the next date is the year they passed their Master Mariner examinations. That remains to be seen, all I need to do now is find out how I can get hold of the above papers.

The year ‘1863’ rang a bell, as I knew he had gone to Scotland around that time to pick up the new steamship ‘Wanganui’ to bring it back to NZ, so I set about searching Papers Past once more and here we have the final proof. see newspaper cutting

I was over the moon because I found both brothers, John & Magnus Linklater, and their various certificates, that gave me the final proof that they were both the brothers of my paternal great-grandfather James Linklater. Full birthdates and places of birth were given on their application forms although Magnus seemed to think he was one year (exactly) older than his birth/baptism suggests.

Page Six

Copies of two certificates covering his "Application to be Examined" (Master Mariner) and the "List of Testimonials and Statement of Service from first going to Sea".

Captain John McKay Linklater was in Scotland to pick up a new ship to sail back to NZ at the time of his examination (1863) so he gives his mother’s address in Leith. The same address she was living at in the 1871 census.

Page Seven

Copies of Certificate of Competency and his Register Ticket #28.531.

Page Eight

Copy of Last Will & Testament.

It’s amazing what you find when you’re not looking! One night, when I should have been in bed, I was browsing through the NZ Archives Archway online for someone completely different when I decided to do a few searches for some other family names. Up popped two very interesting looking wills, one for John Linklater & the other his wife Elizabeth Ann. I was immediately awake but shortly to be deflated when I saw they were in the Wellington Archives. I asked the NZSG (NZ Society of Genealogists) mailing list if there was anyone who visited the Archives regularly who wouldn’t mind looking for me. So thanks to Lesley & Peter who came to the party I now have the two wills plus affidavits of all sorts in my hands.

I know I’ve already said I had the final proof so this just puts the icing on the cake – John leaves to his sister a gold watch, she was Jean, later known as Jane, married to Captain Crighton Clark, who I already knew to be the sister of my great-grandfather James Linklater.

Strange that John gave his wife’s maiden name and that she was ‘known as Mrs John Linklater since the sixth day of Sep 1857’, which begs the question, were they ever legally married? I’ve not found a marriage for them in NZ but it could have been overseas seeing he was a mariner. 1857 is also about 7 years after their daughter was born, she died in 1872 aged 22, listed as the only daughter of Capt John Linklater in the newspaper account of her death. Elizabeth had been previously married to Richard Husband Williams so perhaps she was never divorced from him and/or didn’t know where he was. His death doesn’t seem to have been registered in NZ so he may have left the country. Well, all sorts of intrigue there!

End of story - for the time being!

^[1]

Can you add any information on John Linklater? Please help grow his WikiTree profile. Everything you see here is a collaborative work-in-progress.

Sources

1. New Zealand BDM Online
2. New Zealand Papers Past
3. New Zealand Disasters and Tragedies - Miscellaneous Drownings
4. International Genealogical Index (IGI)
5. Passenger List of the 'Katherine Stewart Forbes'
6. New Zealand Electoral Rolls (ancestry)

Footnotes

1. ↑ Entered by Dawn Scotting, Wednesday, November 6, 2013.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Dawn Scotting for creating Linklater-25 on 6 Nov 13. Click the Changes tab for the details on contributions by Dawn and others.