Andrew Walker

MS248 reel 16, Vol. 76, page 3
Waterloo County Marriage Register

Extracted from a list of marriages solemnized by Rev. Geo. Irving, a minister of the Canada Presbyterian Church for the year ending 31 December, A.D. 1863.

Andrew Walker, 26, born Scotland, residing Waterloo, parents John Walker and Isab. Murray.
Jane Goodfellow, 24, born Canada, residing N. Dumfries, parents Gideon Goodfellow and Mrgrt Hastie.
Witness John Dalgleish of Waterloo.
On March 13, 1863.

As is typical of county marriage registrations, the exact location of the marriage is not given. We may say, however, that Rev. Irving was located in Ayr at Stanley Street Presbyterian Church.

Further, we may indeed say that the couple was married in Ayr, though the evidence is a bit of a mess.

Rosemary Ambrose has transcribed marriages as they appeared in the Dumfries Reformer and Mrs. Ambrose' transcription of this marriage will no doubt be as it appeared in the April 1, 1863 edition of the paper. This tells that Andrew Walker was married on 17 March, 1863, to Helen Goodfellow at Ayr by Rev. George Irving.

That the couple was married by George Irving isn't an issue. Further, that they were married at Ayr is entirely reasonable. Irving apparently returned the record of this marriage to the county clerk as having been held on the 13th of March. Either the county clerk misread Irving's handwriting, or the Reformer's compositor made a mistake with the handwriting in front of him. Which then brings us to Jane's name being presented as Helen in the Reformer. Since the Reformer shows her as marrying Andrew Walker, and as the marriage registration and no end of census information tells, then the only other possibility is that Jane had two given names - Jane Helen, or Helen Jane. Given the groom's name, it's difficult to consider another interpretation.

Rev. George Irving died on January 21, 1865, and is buried in Ayr Cemetery. This cemetery was not opened until 1877, but the plan was to move from several small cemeteries the stones and remains to the new Ayr cemetery. The transcription of Ayr cemetery, done by the Waterloo branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society was overseen by Norma Huber, an experienced transcriber, and she tells in the preamble of this work that cemeteries included in this move were those of Stanley Street and Knox Church. George's age is shown as 30 at the time of his death. He had married a year earlier to a Maggie Loghrin of Eramosa.