Here's where it stands

I didn't do much digging today, on the family of William 1711, who may have spawned some or all of the six boys who bolted Scotland and came to the US between about 1760 and 1800, possibly four in a single voyage. I would like it if all six were brothers, but some may be half-brothers, or even cousins, as half-brothers and cousins were all over the place. The place (Scotland, Glasgow, Ayrshire) was swarming with Wallaces and there were even several William 1711s to choose from.

But the wedding that would be most useful to us would be between William and Margaret, in 1736, in Eaglesham, Renfrewshire. That's just southwest of Glasgow and more or less on the border of Ayrshire though don't quote me on that. On the Ayrshire side of Glasgow makes a lot of things possible and a 1736 date will make lots of other things possible. For one, he was 25 when he married, while she was a little younger. That's how these things work.

There is a family of William and Margaret Aiken that pops up in Cambusnethen (Lanarkshire?) that includes a Robert (1742), William (1744), John (1747), Thomas (1749), and another John (1754). Almost perfect! What's missing here would be a Nathaniel and a James, but I could very easily see making them half-brothers or cousins, even proving it possible, and going from there.

The reason I say this is that I really don't like saying that Mary and Margaret are the same, or that this mother goes by all three, Mary, Margaret and Helen depending on her mood when she walks into the courtrooom. If she was consistent, say born Margaret but using Mary all the time, ok, but I don't like using multiple names and implying that people just switched back and forth, or it was all the same people. No it probably wasn't. And some, like Mary Coke, are totally elusive. It's like one person attributed all these people to Mary Coke and then everyone copied that person. I am not finding Mary Coke in birth records/marriage records. Plain Marys, yes. Margarets, even a Helen or two. But I don't really think she was Mary Margaret Helen Muir Coke Wallace. That's a little too much.

So I'm going with the simplest explanation, which at this point involves Margarets and Cambusnethen. They could have lived anywhere in Lanarkshire, or Glasgow, or even Ayr (especially Ayr) and I'd buy it. Saying the family was from Ayrshire makes some sense and at least does not seem totally wrong, as it would be if they were born in Aberdeenshire or something. They were all born in roughly the same area.

Of the two Johns I'll say this: first, the best thing about this theory is that now we have at least one birthdate for John, which we've been looking for for a long time. But it's a mystery why we'd have two in the same family. Did one die early? If so, most likely the first, which would make the second one, John 1754, quite young in 1770. I can live with it. You could get on a boat at 16 in those days, especially if you had at least one older brother with you.