Thomas Cuthbert Goudie

Thomas Cuthbert Goudie is the Goudie who came to New Zealand and the first for whom we have photographs. He is the first we have personality for: he was headstrong and imposing. 

He was born on 7 July 1840, the child of William Goudie and Margaret Brown in Maybole but by the age of five both of his parents had died. He was likely raised by his half-brother Andrew. His early life is unclear but he married Sarah Ann Cummings on 3 March 1863 and sailed to New Zealand on the War Spirit just three months later on 23 June 1863. He resided in Devonport for the 30 years until Sarah Ann died in 1893. There's no evidence that they had children and thus not much trace of the life they spent or whether they spent time in Coromandel before her death. According to his obituary in The Coromandel and Mercury Bay Gazette, "About thirty eight years ago (i.e. 1882) the late Mr Goudie together with his brother-in-law, Mr Inglis, came to Cabbage Bay and purchased the property from Mr Bletchinton, on which they commenced farming. Later, Mr Inglis retired and the deceased continued to work the property up till the time of his death." (I haven't found how a Mr Inglis was his brother-in-law as well.)

What is clear is that Sarah Ann was buried in Takapuna in 13 May 1893 and he married Sarah Bessie Bridle in 26 September 1893 in Coromandel. 

He died at the age of 80 years old. 

William Goudie (father of Thomas Cuthbert Goudie and Andrew Goudie)

We may never have a personal story of the immediate life of William Goudie, father of Thomas Cuthbert Goudie, but there is a lot we could make a story of. The tombstone at Old Maybole Cemetery reads rather mournfully. Almost all of his children died in childhood, his two wives perished before he did, and it is there at the cemetery they were all interred. It's often said that in modern times we cannot imagine the kind of attitudes towards death and grieving they had in the past. How do people go on? In this day in age, the death of one child is enough to sap any will for life.

From what we can read, he was born in 1786, possibly to Henry Goudie and Mary nee Muir. He married Helen Pollock (Or Hellen Bollock) in 1813 at the age of 25 and had a daughter Jane (circa 1818-1824), a son, John (circa 1820-1829) and another son also called John (circa 1823-1824), then Henry in circa 1822. But as apparent on the tombstone, Jane and the younger John died on the same day, 22 May 1824, without any record of of how it happened. Robert would have been born around this time. In 1827, Andrew Goudie was born: He was the only child of Helen Pollock who survived to adulthood. In 1829, Helen Goudie was born but then the older John and Henry died during the same period in successive months. Helen then died three years later. Mary(1834-1852) was born two years after that, just one year before her mother, Helen Goudie nee Pollock died age 43. William Goudie then married once more, to Margaret Brown (1803-1841). Robert died in 1840 just a few months before Thomas Cuthbert Goudie was born. Mary Brown died the following year, and finally in 1845, William Goudie also passed away, leaving Mary Goudie (11 years old), Andrew Goudie (18 years old) and Thomas Cuthbert (5 years old) without parents.

He is the first person we have in the Goudie lineage with a lot of detailed documentation from a birth record, a will (a bonanza of information) and census records. From the last census, 1841, we know he was a grocer. Mary Goudie wasn't living with them. (She died later at the age of 16.)

The fact that he did die in 1845 is well documented in his will. His will fleshes out a lot of his life. He had land, a sister, Margaret (married Leckie), and even an illegitimate son, William who was living in Glasgow at the time. 

Unclear areas: The tombstone leaves the problem of the William Goudie mentioned at the bottom of the tombstone at the date of 2 October 1888, age 79. This cannot be the same William as there are other birth-dates recorded and it would have meant William married Helen Pollock at an unfeasibly young age. The date and age means that this William Goudie was born circa 1803. (This could plausibly be the illegitimate son if conceived when our William was a teenager but would seem unlikely.)

Another area was noticed by Peggy Goudie: At the point she was researching, the will was unknown. She had noted: "Papa (i.e. Thomas Cuthbert Goudie) has a walking stick which has an inscription on: 'Presented to Wm. Goudie, treasurer of the Carrick Reform Association, 1857.'" She also records a marriage certificate with 1863, and a third wife mentioned elsewhere: Elizabeth Cuthbert Muir. (I cannot find information on the Carrick Reform Association, but for background, Carrick was a district in Scotland that later became South Ayrshire. The main reorganisation of Carrick into Ayrshire, was in 1889 with the Local Government (Scotland) Act. I don't know if there is any connection between this kind of reform, or something more moralistic.)

I can only assume that there is a separate William Goudie who played a role in the early life of Thomas Cuthbert Goudie. 

Laying down a narrative

This is the first post in an attempt to lay down the narrative for the family tree that led to the children of Warren Andrew Goudie, especially focussing on the Goudie line, but also exploring, the McNarey and Hipkins lines. (The Denize and Holt lines are well documented.) In 2009 I laid down the skeleton of the family tree in https://www.myheritage.com/site-family-tree-72392601/goudie-beyond. Family trees though interesting are bare bones and denies the muscle and ligaments that pull and tug the history of how we became. It also fails to see the personalities that give the body of our history the character it has.

Blogs, like my personal blog, are usually thoughts laid down through time. This blog I intend to be different. Each blog will be a topic that can be edited and added to at any time. Visitors are welcome to add comments to or correct the existing content. I intend there to be as many contributors as are willing to contribute. All entries will be tagged with the relevant family name, individual name and any historical or geographical linking titles. I hope over time descendents of our earliest ancestors, should they Google our ancestors names and find this site, correspond with me and hopefully add a blog to patch in part of the story. All entries are open to editing. If my half-siblings in time would like to add their Layson stories, even this entry can be broadened.

The photo above is my favourite from my initial effort at genealogy. It shows the children of my great-grandfather, Thomas Cuthbert Goudie, all born after his 53rd birthday, in Coromandel, New Zealand. The smallest one in the middle is my grandfather, Andrew Joseph Goudie, born when his father was 67. This really shows the generational warping of time in my branch of the family: Thomas Cuthbert himself was the youngest son of his father, born when William Goudie of Maybole was 54, with only one other older half-sibling, Andrew Goudie. My father was the youngest, born when his father was 39. My half-siblings, Hayley and Hannah, in turn were born when our father was 61. That means at its longest, from the presumed birth of William Goudie to the birth of his great-great-grandchildren is the mere matter of 223 years, averaging almost 56 years per generation!

There are remnants of the stories of how these came to be and I hope they can be recorded.

Thank you for visiting.