family_gedcom

This member of the family clearly led an adventurous life. Born in Crail, died in Edinburgh after an apoplexy (after 6 days of paralysis) which is perhaps understandable, as he had amassed a fortune in Penang (how: - history sadly does not relate) married an American woman who vore him 12 children all the way from Penang to Paris.

A study of the family tree C shows she must have had "a hell of a time" in the six years ending in 1826, within which 5 children were born, the last of them in Paris and the previous child Charles dying during that period.

This latter information is evidenced by his death certificate (Heriot and Warriston District, Edinburgh 685-7/336. This shows he was actually 81 years, 11 months and 29 days old and goes on to state he was 27 in the district. From this we may assume he returned from Penang in about 1828 by which time all the family had been born and quite a few had died.

Death certificates in those days offered much more information than they do now. Sometime about 1840 he assited G.T. Chiene by guaranteeing him for £20,000 (q.v.) he appears to have lost this.

This first census in Scotland of 1851 gives some of the above information under the return for 24 Abercromby Place where he then lived. Only Ann and E$mily are shown as residing there with their father and mother (most of the rest of them were dead by then) but they are recorded as having a house servant (male), cook, laundress and housemaid. Curiously there is no mention of a coach man, for in those days a carriage was a "sine qua non" for a man of wealth. The house was, and is, situated on a slope:- the "double sunk" held the stables, the "sunk" was the kitchens. Then there were 3 floors of living quarters, topped by the attics where the servants slept.

His wife Elizabeth Bremmer, the daughter of a merchant in New York died at 24 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh in 1861, having survived her husband by 5 years. The informant on her death certificate was her cousin G.T. Chiene of 27 Northumberland Street (just round the corner). The death certificate give as a cause "decay of nature", quite understandable considering her record!!

Patrick Chiene's Trustees are recorded as holders of a "plot" in Warriston Cemetry and the records there show that he and his wife were burried there in 1855 and 1861 respectively, but strangely there is no mention of them on the family tombstone which seems to have been erected at a later date.