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How could somebody get from Scotland to America without leaving records?

April 22nd, 2011 3 comments

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’