Bob Shepherd
Honor Code SignatorySigned 19 May 2021 | 18,547 contributions | 107 thank-yous | 1,266 connections
Signed 19 May 2021 | 18,547 contributions | 107 thank-yous | 1,266 connections
Communication Preferences:
I am interested in communicating 
with
anyone who shares the same ancestors.
My family tree is at <https://www.ancestry.ca/family-tree/tree/172926436/family?cfpid=322248053120>.
- Looking for ancestry and descendants of Jane Smith, born in Cairnie, Aberdeenshire app. 1836, died 1897/02/03 in Glasgow, Scotland. She fathered my grandfather Alexander Smith Shepherd plus 5 other illegitimate sons.
with
anyone who shares the same ancestors.
My family tree is at <https://www.ancestry.ca/family-tree/tree/172926436/family?cfpid=322248053120>.
- Looking for ancestry and descendants of Jane Smith, born in Cairnie, Aberdeenshire app. 1836, died 1897/02/03 in Glasgow, Scotland. She fathered my grandfather Alexander Smith Shepherd plus 5 other illegitimate sons.
- I require info re her birth plus info re her father John Smith & mother Jessie Anderson as shown upon her death registration. I believe Jessie is Janet Anderson, born 1813/03/30 in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, but I would like confirmation if possible. - I require info re her illegitimate son George Smith b. 1873/07/26 whom she named George Shepherd on her 1881 census, but then named him George Smith in 1891. I've found him on the 1911 census as George Sheppard based upon birth place, but I can't find him on the 1911 census with either spelling. He perhaps left Scotland.
tested
Mr. Bob M. Shepherd
Born 1940s.
Ancestors 
Brother of
Kay (Shepherd) Brydon
Descendants 
Father of
[private son (1960s - unknown)], [private son (1960s - unknown)] and [private daughter (1960s - unknown)]
Profile last modified
| Created 13 May 2021
This page has been accessed 794 times.
Biography
I was born in Verdun, Quebec in October 1940. My father, Robert Brechin Shepherd was born in Glasgow, Scotland in February 1903. He was the eldest of 9 children and emigrated to Canada in 1925. My mom was born in Aberdeen, Scotland in May 1906 and was the 7th of 9 children. She emigrated to Canada in 1926. Her sister Margaret had married a British Naval officer in Scotland in 1922, who following his 20 years service, had then joined the Canadian Navy as a naval adviser in 1924. While they were living in Montreal my dad boarded with them. On my mon's arrival at Montreal in 1926 she visited her sister and thus met my dad. They married in December 1927 and in November 1928, my sister Kathleen was born.
The birth of my sister must have been a very difficult one as my mom swore she would never have another child. However, following the declaration of war against Germany in September 1939, my dad received a letter from my grandfather indicating that his 4 brothers had immediately enlisted and pressuring my dad do likewise. He promptly tried enlisting in the Canadian navy but couldn't pass their medical. He was similarly declined by the Canadian Army. Believing he was too old to even consider the air force, he announced his intention to join the Merchant Marine when the ships returned to Montreal in the spring. My mom would have none of that and promptly determined to get herself pregnant as at the time German U-boats ruled the North Atlantic with about a 50% success rate of sinking merchant ships attempting to deliver goods to Britain. With a baby on the way and an 11 year old daughter to raise, he reluctantly didn't attempt to join any ship once they returned to Montreal following the winter freeze up. It meant I was a planned baby, but not truly wanted and my raising as a child was mostly left to my teenaged sister.
In 1957 at the age of 16 I started working for Prudential of England as a ledger keeper in their accounting department. That is where I met my wife Marilyn Brampton who joined as the secretary for the accounts department manager in 1959. In September 1961 we married. In October 1962 our first son was born. It was Marilyn's intention to be a fulltime mother and housekeeper. With that in mind, I left Prudential and found a better paying job with Royal Insurance. In December 1963, our second son was born. In 1965, with all the turmoil being caused by the FLQ, Royal Insurance moved their head office to Toronto and I was asked to transfer there. They also assisted me in buying our first home in Clarkson on the outskirts of Toronto (now Mississauga) by providing a 100% mortgage. Then in March 1966, finally our daughter was born.
In September 1972 Marilyn and I believed our 3 children would have a better life raised in a rural setting rather than urban. We purchase the original farmhouse on 10 acres subdivided from a 100 acre 1850's farm. It was located about 50 miles NW of Toronto, where I then commuted to work each day. The house was an absolute dump, hence we were able to afford it, but it came with a huge bank barn where we were able to have horses, geese, ducks, chickens and rabbits, 2 small ponds and a small stream running through the property. Over the next 15 years we were able to convert it into our dream home, completed just in time for our daughter's wedding in 1990.
One by one the children left home and we became empty nesters. In 1997 I retired from Royal Insurance, but went back the next day working as a self-employed computer systems contractor. Our plan was to put aside my contract income as savings and living dependent upon my pension. When my contract expired we would use the savings to travel, including a visit to Scotland. In 2004 I wasn't happy with the arrangement of the contract renewal and so anticipated telling Marilyn that we were now free to travel. Marilyn vehemently bulked at the idea. That was probably an early indication of her ultimate dementia. Following camping with the kids that fall they insisted something wasn't right and that she should see her doctor. Following tests he declared she was in the early stages of Early Onset Alzheimer's and from there it was all downhill. By 2013 she could no longer form sentences, feed herself or walk without assistance. I could no longer care for her at home and she had to go into a Long Term Care facility, where she remained until her death in 2019. I continued living alone in our house until 2017 when I decided it was time someone else cared for the property and I should move into town, Georgetown, Ontario. There I would be closer to Marilyn's LTC home, my son's home and a hospital if an emergency arose. I now live in what is termed an Independent Living facility that is part of an LTC (long term care) complex. My first son and his wife married in 1986 and live nearby with their daughter. Their son married in July 2020 and I will soon be a great grandfather in September 2021. Our 2nd son married in 1991 and they have one child and live about 3 hours away. My daughter married in 1990 and they live 3/4 hour away with their 2 sons. I am proud to say all 3 of our children have been successfully married for more than 25 years.
My dad died in 1966, my mom in 1971. They had never passed on to me any info of their families. When my sister died in 2002, among her possessions were several overseas family photos and a penciled family tree of my mom's and dad's sisters and brothers. I knew next to nothing about them so with that as a start I began to do a little genealogy research.
Sources
- First-hand information. Entered by Bob Shepherd at registration.
Only the Trusted List can access the following:
- Bob's formal name
- full middle name (M.)
- e-mail address
- exact birthdate
- birth location
- images (15)
- private siblings' names
- private children's names (3)
- spouse's name and marriage information
DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships. It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with Bob:
It may be possible to confirm family relationships. It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with Bob:
-
100.00%
100.00%
Bob Shepherd:
MyHeritage DNA
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My journey started with the marriage registration of my grandparents, Alexander Smith Shepherd to Helen McCallum on 26 Dec 1900 in Glasgow, Scotland, acquired from Scotlandspeople. From it I learned that his parent’s names were James Shepherd and Jane Smith. However, nowhere could I locate a marriage for them and with so many potential individuals with those possible names I was initially stymied. I then acquired the death registration for Alexander Smith Shepherd but it was no further help in determining my great grandparents. I then started looking at census records for an Alexander Shepherd born about the year indicated by his age on the marriage and death records. After looking at several (unfortunately 1901 census wasn't yet available,) I then found an 1881 census for Huntly, Aberdeenshire that showed an Alexander Shepherd the son of a Jane Smith, along with 2 other sons named George and John Shepherd. From that I then found other census records for Jane Smith indicating she had at least 5 illegitimate sons - William Cruickshank, James, John, George and Alexander Shepherd. William Cruickshank only appeared upon her 1871 census and presumably had left home by the 1881 census. On her 1891 census, she had given the 2 sons remaining with her (Alexander and George,) the Smith surname. I was then able to acquire birth registrations for all 5, but none provided any info about the fathers. On all five registrations, only the name of Jane Smith was shown and the surname recorded at birth for each was Smith.
Both birth and marriage registrations provided one other clue regarding the father James Shepherd, His occupation was joiner. I then found that living in Huntly during the years 1868/78 when the 4 Shepherd boys were born, a James Shepherd, carpenter, recorded on 1881 and prior census living with his parents. He died just shy of his 43 birthday in 1884. I did try to learn as much as I could about that James Shepherd, but there was nothing to prove he was the father.
Then a fluke accident occurred. I had been trying to find a birth registration for Jane Smith b, 1836 to 1841 (from the age on her census records). My previous search had been for a Shepherd and I neglected to change the surname for the new search. The result was I was mistakenly staring at a list of Jane Shepherd births for that period. The names of one of their parents rang a bell. They were the same as those indicated for the carpenter, James Shepherd of Huntly. That intrigued me to research a little more about Jane Shepherd b.1839. She had married twice and a daughter of her 2nd marriage, Jane Allan Ogilvie had also married twice. Jane Allan Ogilvie's 2nd marriage was to a James Shepherd, noted on their marriage registration as being first cousins. His parents were shown as James Shepherd, master joiner and Jane Smith. Conclusion, the father of James Shepherd and presumably all 4 Shepherd boys was the brother of Jane Shepherd b.1839. Finally I was then conclusively able to carry on researching my Shepherd ancestry, now back to the start of the 18th century.
Finding more about Jane Smith was an entirely different story. Nowhere was I able to locate a birth registration for her. I did know that she had consistently indicated on her census records that she had been born in Cairnie, Aberdeenshire and from her death record, her parents were named John Smith and Jessie Anderson. Scotlandspeople had far too many marriages for those two names and anyway, I had nothing else to base a correct selection. Then I noticed on each of her children's birth records, while Jane was the official recorded name, she always signed herself as Jean. I had previously been unable to find a census record for earlier than 1871, but using the given name Jean and the birthplace of Cairnie, I located an 1861 record of an Isobel Anderson age 80, living with a 25 year old Jean Smith, supposedly her niece. I then found an 1851 record for a 15 year old Jean Smith as a house servant for a Fenwick family in Huntly and an 1841 record for a 5 year old Jean Smith living with a 50 year old Isobel Anderson.
On the 1861 census record, Jane was indicated as being Isobel’s niece, so if Isobel was truly her aunt, I tried to determine if Isobel’s husband, James Anderson had a brother who married a Jessie or if Isobel perhaps had a sister who also married an Anderson, but that didn’t appear to be the case. I also thought it suspect that a 25 year old Jane could have an 80 year old aunt.…not impossible, but somewhat of a stretch. James and Isobel Anderson did however have four children that I could uncover, one of whom was named Janet, born in 1813. I believe Jessie is often a Scottish diminutive version for Janet. Other than being able to acquire Janet’s birth registration, I have been unable to find anything further concerning her. It is my believe that Jane Smith’s mother was this Janet (Jessie) Anderson and for some reason Jane was raised by her grandmother at least from the age of 5, but why on the 1861 census she was declared as her niece, I shall likely never know. I was unable to fine Janet or Jessie Anderson on the census records of 1841 through 1871. There is an unmarried 66 year old Jessie Anderson born in Huntly living as a servant on the 1881 census. Then, at 78 years old as an inmate at Dr. Alexander Scott's Hospital for the aged on the 1891 and again on 1901 at 88 years old. However, Jean Anderson's 1902 death registration did confirm that her parent's names were James Anderson and Isabella Adamson. It also indicated that she died single. Unfortunately, none of this conclusively proves she mothered Jane Smith. As for Jane's father, John Smith, that is likely a dead end.
edited by Bob Shepherd
That is a beautifully written bio, but due to GDPR regulations I need to ask you to pretty please edit the names of living family members, perhaps use pet names or initials?
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Many thanks
Pam ~ WikiTree Greeter
I'm finding building my tree very tedious. Four or five hours per day has not yet completed my paternal ancestry. Even so, I have largely ignored recording the ancestry of spouses of aunts and uncles. I do have a lot of that data stored on my computer but mostly the info came from links made by Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com and a couple of other sites that I used over the years. My concentration now will be to start loading the data I have collected re my mother's ancestral line.
Regards, Bob
Yes, building your tree can take quite some time, and thank you for giving each ancestor the love and attention that you have. Have you tried the RootsSearch Tool? I absolutely love it and use it all the time. To give it a try, go to the Family Tree & Tools tab; select Genealogy Research, scroll down near the bottom of that list, and select Research with RootsSearch (use your WikiTree email & password). There are over 20 websites to access from there. You can read more about the tool in the RootSearch FAQ. You can also find the tool at the very bottom of the right-hand column under the heading "Research" on the profiles of your open ancestors.
I hope this helps.
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