Genealogy Chat

Yes, I can only see two other Scoots listed for Wiltshire - an Eliza Scoot aged 14, servant, living in Stanton St Quentin - and an elderly John Scoot aged 83yrs, widower, living in another part of Wilts (transcribed as Sutton Benger). I have no idea how close or far apart these areas are from each other as I have no map to hand. We could presume that John aged 1yr is an illegitimate son of young Eliza, who had been sold as a nurse child to this family (things like that were sometimes advertised in local papers) or maybe they came about him in some other innocent way (friend of a friend etc)...but it's pure speculation from my over-active imagination LOL

Yes but there are no scoots in the area

It's the fact that he is listed as a visitor and that there don't appear to be any other visitors in the house that confuses me.

You'd think he must be either a nephew or a foster child (''nurse child''). There are some possible SCOTTs around for the same sort of DoB, including one in Glos in 1881 (I think), but you'd need the incentive of it being your own family to start that sort of comparison exercise. I did try using ''sco*t'' to see what came up, and 1859 ±1 for the DoB. Christine

I spotted on the 1861 census today that my family from Bradford on Avon (Coward family) have a John Scoot aged 1 listed as a visitor. I'd never heard of the name Scoot. He is down as being born in Devon. I could find no record of a birth or a death, or on a later census and no sign of a Wiltshire connection to the Scoots (there are not a lot of them) Thing is there are no other visitors there so who is he? Is it sinister? Any ideas?

Any ideas ...See below