Averil, I have read all the postings on this thread since yours that I am replying to (4/8/2011, 11:34 a.m.), but I have to say that I can’t see anything that makes me prefer your version to Constance Radcliffe’s, apart from one death, as will appear.

Going back to mine of 3/8/2011, 2:53 p.m., let’s leave aside the middle paragraph. That relates to early events that pre-date CKR’s charts. I look forward to following your research and conclusions there in due course.

For now I want to concentrate on my last paragraph. That sets out the changes that have to be made to CKR’s charts to arrive at your position. Let’s call them the Roper shift. You agreed in your reply that I had correctly set them out. There are two Mrs. John Looneys involved in the Roper shift: Margaret Hutchin, whose husband died in 1804; and Isabel Camaish, whose husband died in 1835. There are three John Looneys: the sons of Robert L and Jane Kneen (b 1750); of John L and Margaret Kelvie (b 1748 according to CKR or 1745 according to your Timeline Part 2); and of Daniel L and Isabel Cashen (b 1770). One of the three could be the unfortunate that died in 1783 aged 34. That one (let’s call him the 1783 decedent) could not be the husband of either lady because they both had children well after 1783. That age of 34 is a really useful piece of information. If we had the other ages at death, there wouldn’t be this problem. That age implies a birth in 1748/9, which sort-of fits the son of Robert and Jane (1750), your candidate, and also the son of John and Margaret.

So another possibility is that the 1783 decedent was the son of John and Margaret. That would be a reduced shift that left Margaret Hutchin with Bwoaillee Losht and still switched Isabel Camaish to the son of Daniel and Isabel, though that’s not something that either you or CKR is suggesting, and would have interesting consequences for Gob-ny-Scoute (see below).

The devolution of Gob-ny-Scoute would seem to have an important bearing on this. I have been through your Timeline and subsequent postings and find four places where GnS is mentioned. Part 1 of your Timeline gives the 1769 will of John the husband of Margaret Kelvie. We learn that he has two properties, Crow Creen and GnS. Earlier that year he settles half of GnS on his son Daniel. Things are to stay that way until John and his wife have both died. At that point Daniel’s brother John is to get the other half of GnS and Daniel is to hand over his half of GnS to his brother John, whereupon Daniel receives Crow Creen, and they have one whole property each. If the terms of that will were carried out, then Daniel ended up without any part of GnS.

The next time we hear of GnS is in Part 9 of your Timeline, towards the end of the 1832 settlement, when John L snr. acknowledges to have given an heir’s bargain to his son John of a parcel commonly called Gob-ny-Schoot. We are both agreed that here John snr. was the husband of Isabel Camaish, and his son was the husband of Rachel Redhead.

Then in 1842 there is a forced sale to meet a debt to Thomas Kneale (your posting of 17/8/2011. 11.30 a.m.). TK is the successful and only bidder.

Lastly in 1849, TK having died, the property is again put up for sale, including ‘two detached Parcels of Land known by the name of “Gobna-scout”’ (your posting of 8/8/2011, 9.53 p.m.).

Going back to the second of these, the 1832 settlement by John Looney, snr., we have to ask how he came by it. Under the Roper shift the settlor needed to have acquired it from his uncle and namesake John Looney, who should have taken it, one half at a time, under the 1770 will of his father, the husband of Margaret Kelvie. We don’t yet have anything to show the transmission. Under the Roper shift this John died in 1804. Perhaps in his will he bequeathed it to his nephew and namesake, rather than to his own son John, who still had another 6 years to live. Or perhaps he did bequeath it to his son, who then bequeathed it to his first cousin and namesake John, although on CKR’s tree he might have married Ann Corteen and had a son William. Or perhaps the terms of the 1770 will of John, the wife of Margaret Kelvie, were never carried out, and not only did son Daniel not hand over his half to his brother John, but he somehow managed to get hold of the other half, due to go to John direct from his father, and Daniel then bequeathed both halves to his own son John, who married Isabel Camaish under the Roper shift. In that case we should see that happening in the will of Daniel, who died in 1826. In the 1849 sale there are two detached parcels making up GnS. Presumably these are the two halves that were to go to Margaret Kelvie’s son John in two stages. From the 1832 settlement onwards GnS is referred to as if it was a complete entity, not, say, the settlor’s half only. Where we find the adjoining land of GnS described, we don’t find any mention of the adjoining other half of GnS, so it must have been the whole thing that passed each time, albeit in two detached parcels as stated in 1849.

Isn’t the simpler explanation that the 1832 settlor John Looney had that land because he was the son of John Looney and Margaret Kelvie, and acquired it under the terms of his father’s will? That is the basis of CKR’s charts Looney Yack sheets 1 and 2.

Let’s look now at some of the other postings.

In yours of 27/7/2011, 5:34 a.m. you made a chart based on the 1841 census and from an extract on p. 248 of CKR’s Maughold book that she wrote with her husband Bill. There are statements in it that point both ways. When they say “From six of these sons [of John Looney and Margaret Kelvie] are descended all the Looneys in Maughold at the time of the 1841 Census, and subsequently”, that is consistent with the Roper shift in that the Looneys at Cardle Veg come under her unrelated Bwoaillee Losht family tree, but descend from John, the third son of JL and MK as shifted. When she comes to that third son John, what she says is consistent with her tree.

In yours of 27/7/2011, 6:08 a.m. you say three times that John, husband of Isabel Camaish who died in 1835, was baptised on 14th Jan 1770. You comment that he can’t be the son of JL and MK. If he was baptised in 1770 that would be right, but was he? CKR says he was born in 1748. Why is that wrong?

In yours of 5/8/2011, 1:51 a.m. you give us the 1803 and 1805 intestacies of Margaret Looney als Hutchin, and of John her husband. The posting is headed Dreemskerry, and contains a birth date for him of 1745. These would be by way of preamble that you added, as all that the documents tell us is about the couple’s deaths, who their children were, and that the children were to be co-administrators. All this is consistent with the deceased John being the son either of Robert L and Jane Kneen, or of John L and Margaret Kelvie.

It seems that this whole shift is entirely driven by the 1783 decedent, aged 34. He fits the son of Robert L and Jane Kneen, so Margaret Hutchin and her children (b 1777-1797) have to find another John. They find the son (b 1745 or 1748) of John L and Margaret Kelvie, so Isabel Camaish and her children (b 1788-1799) have to find another John. They find the son (b 1770) of Daniel L and Isabel Cashin, who is just about old enough to have them. Where does that age of 34 come from? Off the board Sue has told me that the Maughold burial register has no age given for John Looney buried May 25 1783. The age comes from the Manx Notebook: 1783 John Looney, buried May 24th, 34, according to Frances’s scanning. From "MEMORIALS OF "GOD'S ACRE", BEING: MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTIONS IN THE ISLE OF MAN, TAKEN IN THE SUMMER OF 1797. BY JOHN FELTHAM AND EDWARD WRIGHT". In 1797 the inscription would have been fresh, so we have to accept it. Did this 1783 decedent leave a will? That would be a big help.

To conclude, if we go with the Roper shift, we have the improbably complicated devolution of Gob-na-Scoute to explain. If we go with Constance Radcliffe we have the 1783 decedent to explain. That death does not appear on her trees. We would have to suppose the existence of another John Looney, born about the same time as the sons of John L and Margaret Kelvie, and of Robert L and Jane Kneen, about whom nothing is yet known other than his death.

Averil, I end up with two questions for you:

1. Is your theory purely driven by the 1783 decedent, or is there some other argument that I have missed?

2. Can you tell us how Gob-ny-Scoute came into the ownership of the son of Daniel L by 1832?

I would like to thank Frances and Sue for answers to my queries, and the others who has contributed to this.