It was a spectacular find. Among the records in Alexander Mathison's pension file was a questionnaire with so many of those things family historians would ask their ancestors about if they could. There were questions about his marriage including his wife's maiden name and when, where and by whom they were married. The details about his children were also filled out. I now have a brilliant head start for searching out those records.
Most of those questions were about events and people which Alex knew as an adult. He might had had to wrack his brain for some of the details but he could have been helped by his wife who was still alive at that time. Women are often better keepers of that knowledge maybe because they are more intimately involved, particularly in the birth of children. His wife wouldn't have been able to help him with information about his own birth which was where I detected a problem.
If I had come cold to this document with all its marvelous information I might have been led astray by the answer he gave for his place of birth. He wrote that he was born near Hamilton, Ontario in Canada. That is incorrect but may have been the story he told himself about his past.
Back then people didn't carry around the documentation we have now. That was readily apparent in the affidavits in the pension file which required Alexander Mathison to swear that he was the same Alexander Mathison who signed up in Freeport, Illinois in 1861. They had no social insurance number or drivers license to attest to their date of birth or passport to confirm their place of nativity. In Alex' case he probably knew that he told a falsehood about his place of birth but found it easier to leave out the beginning of the family's history.
Alex truncated his family story placing his birth close to the last place in Canada where he had seen his family in the late 1850s. He left out the family's wanderings but admitted in a letter to his sister that they had come to Canada in about 1849 or 1850. Although he didn't spell it out, they had been in Prince Edward Island before that. I found a copy of my 2 x great grandmother Catherine's baptism there at Belle Creek. She was his sister. Prior to that, however, they had been in Scotland where Alex was born. His baptism took place on August 30, 1837 in Portree on the Isle of Skye. I'm glad that I knew this before I came across the informative questionnaire in his pension file or I might have been led astray.
Sources:
LDS film 0990671 OPR Portree 1837 baptism record for
Alexander Matheson
LDS film 1487759 PEI Index to baptisms prior to 1886, 1845
baptism of Catherine Matheson
The National Archives, Soldiers Certificate No. 74172,
Veteran: Alexander Mathison Rank: Private Service: Co. “B” 15 Ill. Inf Can No.:
1185 Bundle No.: 30
Image:
Saint Patrick’s Day celebration, Army of the Potomac, American Civil War. Irish Brigade holds a steeplechase race By Edwin Forbes, 1839-1895 - Library of Congress, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8697176
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