Gone too soon

Margaret Morrison had seven illegitimate children to three (or possibly only two) different fathers. Her story begins in Aberdeen in northern Scotland in 1864 ¹. Her mother, Annie Hatt, died of Tuberculosis in 1874, at the age of 37 ². At this time her seven children were aged between two and fifteen years of age ³.  Margaret was ten.

Being the eldest girl, the mothering would have automatically fallen to Margaret, the only other girl was aged two. We can only speculate about how it must have felt for Margaret to lose her mother and at the same time have such responsibility thrust upon her.

Margaret’s first illegitimate child Alice was born ten years later in Edinburgh in 1884 ⁴ and her life was irrevocably changed by the birth of that child. Could it be, however, that it was the loss of her mother at such a young age, that set Margaret on a collision course with her fate?

Margaret lived most of her life as the servant of the father of five of her seven children.

References:

1. Scottish Birth Register, 1864 GROS Data 168/02 0974 Margaret Ann MORRISON (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk: accessed 17 April 2016) [↩]
2. Scotland Death Register 1874, GROS Data 168/02 0098, Annie Morrison, (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk: Retrieved 23/7/2016) [↩]
3. Ancestry.com. 1871 Scotland Census [database online]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007. Original Data: Scotland. 1871 Scotland Census. . Reels 1191.General Register Office for Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland. Source Citation: Parish: Old Machar; ED: 22; Page: 17; Line: 7; Roll: CSSCT1871_35[↩]
4. Scottish Birth Register, 1884 GROS Data 685/04 0313 Alice Lycke MORRISON (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk: accessed 17 April 2016) [↩]