Margaret Scott (Scot) (About 1704 - unknown), her family and ancestors

The first definitive fact we have is that Margaret Scott married William Gemmil in Greenock on 31 August 1727 and from that marriage onwards we can trace our family history.

If we surmise that Margaret was likely to have been under 30 when she was married, given that she gave birth to a child in 1747, 20 years after her marriage; and that she didn’t get married under the age of 15, then she must have been born between 1697 and 1712 .  In the records in Scotlands People, there are well over 200 births of a Margaret Scott or Scot recorded between these dates.  However, when she married in Greenock, Margaret was recorded as being “in this parish” and only three of all these Margaret Scott births were recorded as being in Greenock. One in 1702, another in 1704, and a third in 1705.  Of these, two recorded the father’s trade as being a “skipper”, the third (1705) being recorded as a “workman”. We know her future husband, William, was a ”Shipmaster”, so it is tempting to believe that a daughter of these seafaring families might have married into another seafaring family?  Of these two, the daughter born to James Scott and Magdelene Rankin on 2 November 1704 looks the most likely on the grounds that her mother’s name, Magdelene, was the name Margaret and William chose to give to their first daughter.  But, whilst it is tempting to believe this, the evidence is only at best circumstantial, so to do so would no more than guesswork.

But we do know that Margaret Scott married William Gemmil in Greenock on 31 August 1727 and that Margaret and William had a family of nine:

Of these nine children, only three, William, James and Margaret survived to adulthood.

We do not know when Margaret died.