Talking of historical research

I was talking to Anne about researching family trees and she has found in her family that most of her ancesters were either coal or iron stone miners.
Most of my family are too!
And they both seem to be dominated by Irish economic migrants.

It's quite depressing really when you research what life was like for them.

Wee Sarah Quate for example - my dad's dad's mum.
She was born in Lanarkshire about 1865.
So was her wee brother-William but her dad - John Quate and her older brother-John and sister-Agnes were all recorded in the 1871 census as coming from Ireland.

Her mother wasn't recorded which probably means she was already dead. Not really surprising when you consider what Lanarkshire was like at that time.

The family were living in Rosehall (Coatbridge) in what was referred to as Front Row.

I did a bit of research on Rosehall - not a good place to live.
Diseases like TB, dysentry and even cholera were rife because of the crowded unsanitory living conditions.
The Miner's Rows were two rooms with no running water. At the end of each row was a 'wash house' and a couple of toilets for the use of the women in the row.
The open sewers from the rows and from the houses further up the road ran down in front and behind the houses.
Some cottages it was said had two families living in them.
One did the nightshift and the other did the day shift.
What is it you call this - hot bedding?

A bit like the slums of Mumbai?!

An observor at the time said that going into Rosehall was like descending into hell.
The mines and blast furnaces were worked 24 hours a day.

The people were exposed to the constant noise of machinery - so bad it was said that the very ground vibrated under your feet.

The air was constantly full of soot.
When the weather was dry the air was also full of stour but when it rained the road became a quagmire.

The blast furnaces added to the noise of the machinery but they also sent huge flares of bright orange fire into the sky - day and night.


Sarah was still living in Front Row ten years later. Her wee brother William was now down the pit too - aged 14.

What happened to Sarah?
Well at some point after the 1881 census, she left Rosehall to work as a 'domestic servant'.
She met Robert Aitchison who was about ten years older than her.
He was a fireman at the pit.
They got married in 1890 and had a son Archie in 1892.
He had a son - my dad who was registered as Robert Aitchison - and then there's me!

So that makes Sarah my great granny!

Archie Aitchison

I reckon he was in forties when this photo was taken but I have no idea where i came from. Maybe Mary will know. I'll ask.

Not sure yet what happened to him. He was a coalminer aged 27, when he got married to Frances Mary Sowerby aged 20, in 1921.
I wonder what became of him?
There are stories in the family but nothing definite.