Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

I take out the next items of personal memorabilia – the certificates of my mother and father, that is, their birth and marriage certificates, as well as their wedding photo.  There seems a lot to cover regarding the life of my parents.

Alexander Harkness

I take the birth certificate of my father out of the Magical Memory Box. It provides the following information: He was born on July 26 at 134 Gorgie Road, Edinburgh, Scotland.

His father is Alexander Whitecross Harkness, and his mother is Georgina m. s. Hume. His parents, Alexander and Georgina, were married June 5, 1915, about one year after the start of the First World War.

Interestingly, the name Alexander Whitecross goes back at least 200 years, and still lives on today in the family. In other words, Alexander Whitecross married Marion Nisbet²⁵ in 1816. They gave birth to James Whitecross. The daughter of James Whitecross was Isabella Whitecross, my father’s grandmother. 

My grandfather, Alexander Whitecross, was also an electrical fitter (electrician / engineer) like my father, and also my brother Alistair. So the profession of engineer has wandered from generation to generation, for at least four generations. My eldest brother is called Alexander Whitecross, and his son is also an engineer.

Well I think that is all the information I can glean from this particular certificate, so I put it back in the Magical Memory Box and take out my mother’s birth certificate.

Rhoda Campbell MacGillivray

Rhoda Campbell MacGillivray was born on 21 May 1921. She inherits two names from her grandfather Roderick Campbell, as Rhoda is the feminine form of Roderick. She was born at 81 Plantation Street, Govan, Glasgow.

Her father’s name is Hector MacGillivray, and he worked as a Spirit Salesman²⁶. Her mother is called Morag, m. s. Campbell; she is called Sarah on the certificate (Sarah is the Anglicized form of the Gaelic name Morag).

Rhoda’s parents were married 29 October 1918, roughly two weeks before the end of the First World War. They married at Acharacle, Argyll, where Hector’s family come from. Well that’s about as much information as I can collect from that certificate, so I put it back in the box, and take out my parents’ marriage certificate.

My Parents Get Married

Alexander and Rhoda got married on 4 October 1940 at St. George’s Church, Glasgow (so it seems?). However, the certificate calls the church St. George’s Road Church, but this may be an error of some sort.

My mother was living at 29 Scotia Street, which was demolished around 50-60 years ago to make way for the M8 motorway. St. George’s Church near St. George’s Square is Presbyterian, and less than half a mile from Scotia Street, if Scotia Street ran from New City Road to Shamrock Street²⁷. So it seems fairly likely this is the church where they got married.

My mother’s family had crossed the River Clyde northwards, as she was born at 81 Plantation Street, Govan, south of the river, and then moved northwards across the river to Vulcan Street in Springburn²⁸; and then later, they moved southwards to 

Scotia Street, but still north of the river. My mother was 19 years old when she married, my father 24 years old. My father was living at 2 Chesser Loan in Edinburgh. But it states on the certificate that he is “now engaged in the war service” (this probably means that he resided temporarily in other locations); it states that he is an electrician and that he is an officer serving in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve with the rank of sub-lieutenant.

²⁵ Scotlandspeople.
²⁶ He worked at MacMillan’s Bar situated at the corner of Springburn Road and Vulcan Street.
²⁷ http://discuss.glasgowguide.co.uk/Memories-Of-Scotia-Street-New-City-Road-t16668.html Date of reading: 2 Jan. 2022.
²⁸ My Aunt Violet, my mother’s younger sister, still lives in Springburn (2022).