Alexander Pattullo

Great-grandfather of Ruth (Short) Ellingwood. A native of Dundee, as his gravestone has it, he married Jean Watson of Prestonpans at Inveresk with Musselburgh in October 1806, and their sons James and Halkett were baptised there or nearby in 1807 and 1809 (source). In the autumn of 1820 he went out to Upper Canada and took up Lot 2, Con. 6, in the southwest corner of Caledon Township, Peel County, among the Scottish "Rockside Pioneers"; "in 1823 his wife and family, James, Thomas, Halkett, Margaret and Jane, joined him in the 'New Land'" (Berniece Trimble's history of Belfountain, quoted on WikiTree). He was killed by a falling tree and died on 8 December 1828, aged 54, eight years after the crossing. His son Halkett put up the stone at the Melville White Church in 1855, with his wife Jane Watson (d. 1852, aged 83) and their son Thomas (d. 1849, aged 31) (source).

His children, with the dates a printed genealogy gives them (source): James (23 Jun 1807, Inveresk - 10 Jun 1890, Garafraxa), who farmed "Bonnie Braes," Lot 5, Con. 6, Caledon, married Polly Campbell and raised eleven children, and as a widower of 71, of Garafraxa, married again at Brampton in 1879, naming his parents Alexander Pattullo and "Mary" [?] Watson (record); Halkett (31 Jul 1809 - 1855); Jane (b. 9 Feb 1812), Mrs. Joseph Mountain, who had eight children; Margaret (23 Dec 1813 - 1894), who married John Kirkwood at seventeen and also had eight; and Thomas (8 Apr 1817 - 31 Oct 1849) (Trimble; Find a Grave memorials 35766524, 35766530, 35766352, 192829173).

Research: Ruth Short's ancestry: the archive, the Ancestry tree, WikiTree and FamilySearch compared, Ellingwood line: the wives' families (Pattullo and Short, Adams and Deyoe, Rice and Sylvester).

Open questions

• His parents. Three leads, none fitting:
  • WikiTree offers a baptism at Bellie, Moray, 29 Nov 1772, to James Pitilloe and Jean Gordon, chosen because his first son was James; it does not fit "a native of Dundee."
  • Find a Grave's contributor offers Carnbee, Fife, 5 Mar 1788, son of John Pittullo and Janet Halket; too young for a man of 54 in 1828.
  • What that last record does show is a Pattullo married to a Halket in Fife, and a Janet Halket Patullo was baptised at Bo'ness in 1755. His son's name, Halkett, very probably honours a Halket in his own family, perhaps his mother.
  • The Dundee registers for 1773-1775 are the place to look.
• The 1806 marriage entry at Inveresk itself, for his occupation and residence.
• The 1829 death notice, in full (newspaper and date).
• A claim on some trees that he married a Sarah or Sadie Howe or Howie: Find a Grave's contributor found no record of it in any repository; not used.