About a week ago I posted a journal regarding the information I had about my great grandparents Peter Duncanson and Eliza Ross Glasgow Scotland. Tonight I am going to focus on my great uncle George Duncanson born 1876 Glasgow Scotland and died in Vancouver BC Canada December 16, 1939.

Somehow this great uncle ended up in Australia while many of his brothers and sisters came to Canada. He was married to a Dorothy Mae (last name unknown) but the address given on his Australian military enlistment papers give an address of 8 Shirley Road, Upper Shirley West Croyden, Surrey, England. He enlisted on March 16, 1915 at the age of 38 and papers say Regimental No. 837 28th Battalion 7th Brigade C Company Infantry Brigade - the enlistment card says Australian Imperial Force - Attestion Papers Of Persons Enlisted For Service Abroad and joined in Bridgetown West Australia. He was promoted to Sergeant in France in 1916. He was discharged in April 1919 and returned to Australia on ship called Ormonde on June 6, 1919 and the documents say his wife was with him on ship. and the. On the original document in 1915 said no wife then updated (I have been able to actually see the military documents on National Archives of Australia. The index card was updated in 1916 or 1917 showing next of kin was no longer sister in Vancouver Eliza Sanderson but Dorothy Mae Duncanson. (He must have met Dorothy in England??? and married in 1916 or so???) At the end of the war or when he returned to Australia and his daughter Margaret W. (Peggy) was born he would have been 44

They had a daughter Margaret W. (Peggy) Duncanson born in 1920. But from my research Dorothy Mae died in Australia in 1921. Great Uncle George brought his daughter to Canada where he felt he was unable to take care of her and his sister Annie Campbell Duncanson and her husband James Dunlop Kerr adopted her. They lived in Seattle, Washington where Peggy married James Neidigh in Seattle and they had 3 children.

The interesting thing is that her real father sort of became her uncle while her aunt and uncle became her parents. I would certainly like to know how George Duncanson went to Australia and did he meet his wife there or was she also from Scotland. I would also like to know what her last name was. I can understand a man who is a widower at age 45 with a one year old daughter finding it difficult to look after her on his own.

Sure would be nice if anyone out there could fill in a few blanks in his life.