Death Records Now

I have been researching ancestry and one man managed to immigrate to America in the early 1800s without leaving any records. No immigration records exist with his name. Also, he married a woman with an unknown last name in America in 1824 when he was 20 years old. I know that because their first child was born shortly after their marriage in Pennsylvania. I am lead to believe that he must have been a criminal or was forced to leave Scotland (my father told me that his father said that we came over here because somebody didn’t pay their taxes). He left a small town called Leadhills Scotland, and none of his family followed him. Was this guy a criminal, or was record-keeping just not as precise as it is in more current times?

Any ideas would be helpful as this is irritating me to death.

Thank you
I don’t know if this is of any help, but the man is named Joseph E. Kerr.

Also, his wife Mary (?) was born on a ship c. 1805. No marriage records exist.

http://www.maxwellancestry.com/ancestry/resources/prisonsearch.aspx a free Scotlish border prison search

http://familytimeline.webs.com/apps/links/ I was looking at a link from this website about transported UK convicts yesterday and found lots of information, several took ailas’s so if he did thn he could be using a different name, also look at the Old Baily link as he may have been sent to London to face trial ( and you hope he was as there is full free searchable records)… http://www.genuki.org.uk/cgi-bin/htsearch?words=1823+transported+convicts&method=and&format=builtin-short&matchesperpage=20&sort=score&config=genuki&restrict=&exclude=&restrict_header=&backlink_header=
Also there are marriages and births registered onboard…you may find he never married rather than it was not recorded and just target searching’ "Joseph Kerr" scotland’ you may find further information…..you hope he was a convict as a convict is worse than a prisoner and at that time in history he would have been transported and records are easier to get if your ancestors are rich or rogues ( more records)

There are also some Kerr’s on these websites http://www.johnmacmillan.co.uk/cemeteries/dum_mouswald.html
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cdobie/sanquhar.htm

Add: look on the links page I gave you ( familytimeline’s) under general FH resources at ‘Black sheep ancestry’

VIDEO 2 starts at 1:20 Video 3 starts at 2:10 — I put together three chronologically placed videos. The first is a raw interview with Shakespeare about his troubles after winning, the second is of the investigation and the last is the report from today.

STORY: (1/29/09)

**PLANT CITY, Fla. — A body found buried in a backyard has been identified by authorities as missing Florida lottery winner Arthur Shakespeare.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office said Friday the remains were identified through fingerprints. The body was found Thursday at a Plant City home connected to a woman who had befriended him.

The house is owned by the boyfriend of Dorice Moore, who authorities have called a “person of interest.”

Moore has said she doesn’t know where Shakespeare is, but authorities say she transferred more than $1 million from his bank account into hers. She said the money was a gift. No charges have been filed.

Shakespeare — who had a criminal record that included arrests and prison time for burglary, battery and not paying child support — won $31 million in 2006 and took a lump-sum payment of $16.9 million instead of annual installments.

He bought a Nissan Altima, a Rolex from a pawn shop, a $1 million home in a gated community. He talked about starting a foundation for the poor and insisted the money wouldn’t change him.

“I’m not a material person,” he said in 2007. “I don’t let material things run me. I’m on a tight budget.”

The money quickly caused him problems.

A former co-worker sued him in 2007, accusing Shakespeare of stealing the winning ticket from him. Six months later, a jury ruled the ticket was Shakespeare’s.

Then there were the people constantly asking him for a piece of his fortune.

“They didn’t wait. They just came right after they found out he won this money,” his mother, Elizabeth Walker, said recently.

She said her son was generous, paying for funerals, lending money to friends starting businesses and even giving a million dollars to a guy known only as “Big Man.”

Not long after he bought the million-dollar home in early 2007, he was approached by Moore, said family and officials.

Moore said she was interested in writing a book about Shakespeare’s life. She became something of a financial adviser to Shakespeare, who never graduated high school.

Property records show that Moore’s company, American Medical Professionals, bought Shakespeare’s home for $655,000 last January. His mother said the last time she saw him was shortly afterward, around her birthday in February.

The sheriff said the last time anyone saw Shakespeare was in April — but it wasn’t until Nov. 9 that he was reported missing, by a police informant.

Duration : 0:4:37

Read more…