Who Was Hugh's 1st Wife - Christine? - A Study and Analysis

It has been generally accepted that Hugh Jameson's first wife was Christine Whitehead and that she was born on the Isle of Man. It is also generally said that she, with Hugh and their children, immigrated to New England, on the Sloop Molly, arriving in Boston in 1746. There is however very little, if any, documented information that seems to prove or reinforce this, as fact.

We do know that Hugh Jameson was married before he emigrated from Ireland in 1746 and that he had with him aboard the ship a wife and some children.[1] What we don't know, because she wasn't named in any contemporaneous documents pertaining to that passage, is who that wife, or for that matter, the number or names of all or any of their children. Some of the children are later named as such, but not specifically as to during the passage, itself. There too is no record of her death or burial.

The first known reference to her or their children, and perhaps the first actual reference to her death and Hugh's remarriage, appears to be in an 1880 published book about (and titled) The History of Antrim, New Hampshire,[2] written by Rev. W. R. Cochrane. Most other references, Including E.O. Jameson's 1901 book, The Jamesons in America,[3] reference this Antrim book, or seem to echo it's reporting on the subject to the letter.

There are several problems with these statements given in the Antrim history book. First is that this book was written over a hundred and twenty five years after her death and does not site any references for these claims. It is true that Antrim has a connection to the Jameson family with several of the children of Thomas Jameson, Hugh's brother, having moved there from Dunbarton after Thomas had died. Thomas however, never lived there, having died in Dunbarton in 1764, more then a hundred years before W. R. Cochrane wrote the History of Antrim. Not only that, but the children of Thomas Jameson who lived in Antrim were all too young to have ever known their Aunt Christine, she having died before most of them were even born. Any of those who would have known their Uncle Hugh would have only known his second wife as Aunt Jane. So, any stories about that part of the family would have percolated through nearly a century of people with questionable resources, at best.

But then there are other problems with this account of the Jamesons as given by Cochrane in his Antrim book. He has both Thomas and Hugh Jameson as having been immigrants from Belfast, Ireland. We know for sure from contemporaneous documents that both of these guys came from Port Rush on the north coast of Ireland and not from Belfast, a considerable distance away on the eastern coast of Ireland. Both who's sailing routes were down around the western coast of Ireland before crossing the open Atlantic for America. All things considered, it doesn't look like W. R. Cochrane had his facts right, and much more likely had taken them from some other source than the family itself.

There are other problems. As an example, although there is a single 1706 reference to a Major Richard Whitehead (freeman) in Carrickfergus County Antrim,[4] there doesn't seem to be any information about any Whitehead family in the Ulster area where we know our family came from. Not in any index of families, cemeteries or any other index or database, we have yet found. Nor does there seem to be any reference to any Whitehead family in the area of New Hampshire where our Jamesons can be found after immigrating. This is unusual and contrary to every explanation. There are however, both Whitehead and Jam?son families to be found on the Isle of Man, at that time, and since. But absolutely no suggestion or clues - even hints of any kind, of any connection with ours or any other families from our area of Ulster or New Hampshire and anything Isle of Man, whatsoever.

It could be that W. R. Cochrane, discovered a record coincidental of some other a Hugh Jam?son married to a Christine Whitehead, living in Belfast, or even still on the Isle of Man and incorrectly assumed that was the same Hugh Jameson who emigrated to America in 1746. It is also possible that someone else, perhaps even an uninformed Jameson family descendant, had made that same assumption and Rev. W. R. Cochrane simply echoed that in his history of Antrim book.

However, it is quite possible that Rev, Cochrane got part of this correct, just not everything. It may have been that Hugh's first wife was named Christine, but that's all. We do have a single clue that might suggest that possibility. Hugh and his first wife's oldest daughter Elizabeth married A John Taggart. They named their third daughter Christen. Although the third daughter amongst the Scots-Irish of that time, was usually named after her mother, this is obviously not the case here. But then none the other names seen to follow those traditions either. it might suggest something, even though this appears to be the only use of that name anywhere in any family in at least, either the first or second generations, following Hugh. This of course would have to be considered a long shot, but nevertheless worth mentioning.