G2G: Who was Catherine Wilkes father?

Question

Catherine Wilkes born Glasgow 1698 married Robert Finlay in Glasgow 1720.

Comments

I have added some tags which may help to attract the attention of someone able to help.

Answer 1

Some additional work is needed. There may be some family conflation going on. The FamilySearch link on her profile seems somewhat confused.  The only sources point to a Katherine Scot marrying Robert Finlay in Glasgow in 1720. Records for one children listed also indicate that. The rest have no sources/

I didn't find a Catherine Wilkes(or any variant) marrying a Robert Finlay in Glasgow in 1720. I'm not finding any Wilkes in the time period of birth through those of children.

I'll look some more later today.

Comments

I spent some additional time. In a 200 year span (1600-1800) there were a handful of WIlkes/Wilks/Wilkies in the Old Parish Registers and no Catherine/Katherine. The Robert Finlay that the ScotlandPeople reference is the one who married Katherine Scot and not a Wilkes.

Not finding records doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't occur. Perhaps someone else will have better luck. Most of the sources on the related profiles aren't reliable which makes it more confusing. I think you need to tease apart some different families.

Answer 2

Catherine Wilkes appears in The Clan Finley by Herald Stout.

Regards,

Roger Finlay

Comments

As I am sure has been discussed previously, much of the Finlay/Finley genealogy as presented by Herald Stout and several earlier writers can't be confirmed with reliable sources.  I've tried several times to confirm the pre-1500 sections and most of it appears to be pure invention.

I would strongly advise that instead of trying to confirm Stout's genealogy the best option to develop an accurate Finlay genealogy would be to start from scratch and see what reliable sources actually state.  For instance Doug McCallum's find that a Robert Finlay actually married a woman named Katherine Scot.

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Hi John,

Thank you for your comment but if you took the time to read about Robert Wilkes Finlay you will discover that I have added a source from Family Search that confirms that Robert Wilkes Finlay’s grandparents were Robert Finlay and Catherine Wilkes. This matches exactly what is written in The Clan Finley by Herald Stout. While I agree that Stout did not get everything right ( eg. my own 4x great grandfather, George Finlay was said to have died young but lived until he was 78 years old. ) I do not agree that he simply made it up. It is based on some facts.

I was hoping that someone on Wikitree had done some research into the Wilkes family in Scotland. There is a note attached to Catherine Wilkes profile that states there is no connection with the Wilkes family in Staffordshire. Although Wilkes is not a Scottish name there are members of the Wilkes family on Scotlands people dating to the early 1600’s. I would like to find out more about Catherine Wilkes family in Scotland because they appear to have contributed a lot to my Finlay family in Glasgow. I will continue to search for sources that back up Herald Stout’s research.

Regards,

Roger Finlay

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Roger, I can see there is a reliable source that names Robert Wilkes Findly as a signatory to a petition from the Sixth Battalion of York County Militia from 1778 but there don't appear to be any reliable sources that names his grandparents as Robert Finlay and Catherine Wilkes that I can see.

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John,

My middle name is Archibald after my Grandfather. It is no accident that Robert’s middle name is Wilkes.