When I was a child I used to smirk at this photograph of what I deemed to be an old and ugly lumpen woman. With her hair scraped back unflatteringly from her face and a sack-like dark dress bagging at the waist, I considered her worthy of ridicule. She wore no make up nor had she made an effort to arrange her face into a pleasing smile. She sat awkwardly and rested one plump hand on the studio photographer’s prop of a table, displaying finger nails like horns that were blackened and stubby. 

My great-great-grandmother Christina Whitehead, circa late 19th C

I now know this woman to have been my great-great grandmother, Christina Whitehead, who was born in 1840. Her son, Robert Neilson, was my grandmother’s father and was my mother’s only living grandfather for the first decade of her life. He was a gentle man who was adored by all his children and grandchildren, until his untimely death when he fell and banged his head on an icy pavement in Edinburgh in the New Year of 1949, still in rude health well into his seventies. However, unlike my mother, my grandmother never knew her paternal grandparents: Christina Whitehead died in early 1902 at age 62, four years before Grandma was born, having outlived two husbands – just. Her first husband was Robert’s father, Adam Neilson, a blacksmith, who died of a kidney infection at the age of 40 in 1878 when Robert was only six. The second was Robert Harrison, another blacksmith, whom Christina married four years later, and who’d possibly been a friend of her first husband.

Robert Harrison had no children of his own so he might have been happy to take over the role of step-father to Christina’s seven children. It certainly would have made things less complicated than if they had been attempting to blend two families – a not uncommon situation in those days, created by the twin woes of short lives and straightened economic circumstances. In the end, Christina was to live with Robert for the same amount of time as with Adam, until he died in 1900 at the age of 64. His death and funeral were announced in the Edinburgh Evening News due to the fact that he’d been a member of both the Oddfellow’s and Blacksmith’s Societies in the City of Edinburgh Lodge. The notice requested the members to attend the ceremony held at Echo Bank – the older name for Newington Cemetery on the South Side of the city.

Death Notice from the Edinburgh Evening News of 17th Nov 1900

It might have been this event that prompted Christina’s visit to the photographer’s studio and may be the reason for her sombre attire in the picture above. Or could it have been after the death of her first husband? Or is she simply wearing a dark, formal dress, as was usual at the time? There is no date on the cabinet card featured above, but the image does look like a woman dressed in a mourning outfit of the late 19th century. The dark, heavy dress with what looks like the addition of crepe frills to the sleeves and neck, and the simple hairstyle and jewellery suggest that this could have been taken to commemorate the death of her second husband, as might have been expected given his status. But as Adam Neilson died in 1878 when Christina was 38, it may even have been taken around this time, given that a working class woman in those days would appear older than today. 

Christina died just over a year after her second husband, on January 3rd 1902, and was described as a cleaner in a club in the 1901 census of the previous year. However, she had been working as a cleaner for many years, which may explain the engrained dirt around her fingernails and the tired yet defiant look on her face. She was born into domestic work, starting out as a farm servant in her native Duns in the Border region, before moving to Edinburgh to take up a position as a domestic servant for a spirit dealer and his family on the South Side of the city. This is no doubt how she met Adam Neilson – a local blacksmith who was originally from East Lothian – and ended up living in the Canongate area of Edinburgh for the rest of her life. 

Death Notice from the Edinburgh Evening News of 6th Jan 1902

Yet not all is what it seems. Robert appears to have died from Paralysis – or tertiary syphilis. Like most family historians, I am no stranger to the shock of finding relatives with this illness. Before the discovery of penicillin, syphilis was a widespread problem affecting all swathes of the population and men and women alike. So it was with some trepidation that I ordered Christina’s death certificate. It did not make happy reading. It would appear that she too may have contracted the disease as she was described as having died at the Royal Asylum Edinburgh from: Brain Disease, Epilepsy over 10 years. Chronic Disease of the Heart and Lungs of over 7 months. She had been admitted to the asylum five months before she died.

So now when I look at the photograph of my great-great grandmother, regarding the camera warily, yet sitting so proudly erect, I see another story behind the image.  And certainly not one that I could have imagined fifty years ago. It is nothing short of a reappraisal. 

Wishing all my readers a very Happy New Year!

The Incidental Genealogist, January 2024

P.S. Due to current writing and study commitments, I will be posting every quarter instead of monthly from now on.