Documenting William McCreath, the sixth child of Robert McCreath provided more than a little challenging.

Neither a certificate of marriage nor death could be found in the GRO in Edinburgh.

My Dad, hazily remembered an Aunt Barbara McCreath who had emigrated to South Africa and that her married name was Balharry.  This later proved to be a vital piece of the jigsaw.

in the late 1990‘s, using ‘The Burke’s Peerage World Book of McCreaths’ – essentially a worldwide address catalogue – I wrote to all those family members listed in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.  Initially without success – as far as my own line was concerned – though with a high level of returns on others.

A further mail-shot to Australia, using addresses supplied by Bill Coates from Melbourne (to whom one of my earlier letters had been passed), elicited a reply from Erica McCreath in Canberra.  Erica (ms. Erica Eldridge) is married to Alexander Donald McCreath (b. 1942, Sydney, NSW).  Erica sent information about her husband’s family by e-mail, including the fact that his grandfather, Robert Charles McCreath, had been born in Egham in Surrey – and that his great-grandfather, William McCreath had been born in Scotland.  I then  engaged the services of a London researcher, Stephen T.J Wright, who examined the relevant census returns. The family was listed in both the 1881 and 1891 census but in neither case was a precise place of birth for William given. A temporary dead-end, though Erica had identified a South African branch of their immediate family.

The next event, a telephone call from Glenn McCreath (b.1953) in South Africa with a belated though welcome response to the earlier mail-shot, allowed another missing piece of the jigsaw to fall into place.  Glenn passed my letter to his father Sydney William McCreath. Sydney, a retired High Court judge furnished a detailed account of his  family. This included the identification  of an ancestor shared with Erica McCreath’s husband – William McCreath of Egham, Surrey. Progress!

The best news of all was Sydney’s declaration that his father, William Leaver McCreath and my father’s Aunt Barbara McCreath were cousins. If so, their parents, William McCreath (of Egham) and James McCreath (Jane McConnochie’s husband)  had to be brothers – and Robert McCreath and Barbara Jamieson their parents. Bingo!

From the above sources it was possible to build this branch of the family.

One further mystery remained, however. In the 1851 Census William (later of Egham) is listed alongside a brother, David McCreath, of the same age.  William but not David appears in the 1861 Census; but that is another story.

The children of William McCreath (1848-??) and Sarah Anne Leaver