By the the 1901 Census, Joseph is harder to find, and the records we can locate have some errors.
However, working backwards we know that in 1902, he marries Catherine Faloon. Might he already know her in 1901?
His mother Margaret is deceased, as are both of Catherine’s parents. However, we know that Catherine is staying with her sister and brother-in-law, Bridget and Patrick McManus on the night of the 1901 Census. Patrick has also lost his father, and his widowed mother is called Catherine.
Knowing that the Irish community appears to be quite close knit, it shouldn’t perhaps be a shock that we can find a Catherine McManus, widow, born in Ireland, with a house full of boarders with names that sound rather familiar.
On the night of the 1901 Census, boarding in her house are:
- Jas Faloon (26), a coal miner;
- Thos Patton (26), a steel work labourer; and
- Josh Patton (33), a railway yardman.
It seems likely that Jas Faloon is, in fact, James Faloon, Catherine’s eldest brother, and that Tho’s and Jos’h are Thomas and Joseph Patton, but a transcription error has put Joseph at 33 instead of 23.
So we now have the Patton boys lodging with Catherine’s older brother, and her older sister’s mother-in-law at number 68 Park Street, just down the road from Catherine’s sister and brother in law (who were at number 56 Park Street). And Catherine just happens to be staying in that street too.
Just a year later, in 1902, Catherine and Joseph married, on 6 June. Catherine was 18, Joseph was 24 and a Railway Yardman. No longer boarding at Park Street, if that was him in the 1901 Census, but still in the Parish of Dalziel, Motherwell.
The Ardrossan McFarlanes 