It
is already known and well documented that Scottish Theodore Forbes[1] and Indian-Armenian
Eliza Kevork are ancestors of British Royals, Princes William and Harry
respectively.
 |
| The direct male Forbes line of descendancy of Theodore Forbes, Ann Macdonnell and Eliza Kevork |
Theodore
and Eliza had at least 3 children, Katherine Scott Forbes in 1812, Alexander
Scott Forbes in 1814 and a third, possibly a boy who died as a baby.
 | |
| Baptism record of Catherine Scott Forbes and Alexander Scott Forbes via www.fibis.org |
The
royal line can be traced through Katherine Scott Forbes’s marriage to James
Crombie and their children, all of which is well documented in various family
trees on a number of genealogy websites. More recently a number of news
articles published world-wide both in print and digitally, have explored the
direct relationship with the Princes, and it is not my intention to investigate
this genealogy line today.
However,
scarce recognition (so far) has been given about the life and descendants of Katherine
Scott Forbes’s brother Alexander Scott Forbes.
But
first, not so commonly known is the fact that Theodore Forbes also had another
son, not with Indian-Armenian Eliza Kevork but borne by a Scottish woman called
Ann Macdonnell.
 |
| Theodore Forbes acknowledged his illegitimate son in his Will. |
The
child was named Frederick Forbes, and is acknowledged by Theodore in his Will[2] as “my respected son Frederick by Ann Macdonnell
of Aberdeenshire”. Little Frederick was bequeathed 20,000 Bombay Rupees,
only 5,000 Rupees less than Alexander, the son Theodore had with Eliza Kevork.
Frederick was born in Scotland on 22 November 1808 and it would seem that after
Theodore’s death, Frederick came under the care of his uncle (Theodore’s
brother) Alexander Forbes and his wife Annabella nee Reid and their children.
Conveniently
ignoring his illegitimacy, Frederick became fully absorbed into the Forbes
family, and he went on to graduate from Marischal University in 1827[3]. In 1831
Frederick was nominated by his cousin, John Forbes (son of Alexander Forbes the
uncle that took in Frederick) for entry
into the East India Company as an Assistant Surgeon[4]. His
preparations for a military career didn’t quite go to plan. Having studied medicine
for some time, The Royal College of Surgeons in London wrote that Frederick was
“found to be unqualified for the
situation” and was therefore referred back to his professional studies for
a further six months. Frederick was finally examined and passed as an Assistant
Surgeon in February 1832.
 |
| The Royal College of Surgeons found Frederick Forbes "unqualified" |
From
the book: The Visit of Frederick Forbes
to the Somali Coast in 1833” by Roy Bridges[5]:
an explanation is give as to why: “…..Frederick
found himself in the Gulf of Aden in the Red Sea in 1833 because his ship, the
brig Tigris, had been ordered to Mocha to keep an eye on developments there as
Mohammed Ali's campaigns against his nominal Turkish overlord proceeded…….
….at the time of his [Frederick’s] visit
to the Somali Coast he was attached to the Indian Navy. His regrettably brief
subsequent life shows that he was on the way to becoming a notable
scholar-explorer. At this early stage he obviously had some hopes of travelling
in Africa[6]
but the accidents of his career led him
to make expeditions in the Mesopotamian
and Persian regions of South-West Asia.[7]”
Frederick’s
thesis in 1840 on the “Nature and History
of Plague as Observed in the North Western Provinces of India” gained him a
gold medal awarded by the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Edinburgh.
Touchingly, Frederick dedicated the book to his uncle
“Alexander Forbes, Esquire
of
Boyndlie, Aberdeenshire.
This Treatise is Inscribed
As A
Mark Of Respect And Gratitude”
Like
so many about to embark into unknown territories, Frederick made a Will on the
3rd April 1841 in Tehran, Persia.
Witnesses were Frederick Hughes of the Madras Company and Syeed
Khan. Frederick appointed “Charles Forbes Esquire or the managing
partner for the time being of the firm of Forbes and Company, Bombay, Alexander
Forbes Esquire of Boyndlie [his uncle] in the county of Aberdeen, and James
Crombie [his half sister Kitty Forbe’s husband and ancestor to Princes William
and Harry respectively] now lately residing at Swailand of Elrick in the parish
of Newmachar and county of Aberdeen, to be the executors of this my will.”
 |
| Frederick ensured his mother (Ann) was provided an annuity for her lifetime. |
Frederick’s
Will is also evidence of his blood relationship to Alexander Scott Forbes.
 |
| I give and bequeath to Alexander Scott Forbes son of my late father Theodore Forbes of Bombay........ |
Frederick’s
last bequest: “I give and bequeath the
residue of my personal estate whatsoever or wheresoever to my said executors
Alexander Forbes and James Crombie for their absolute use and benefit for and
on account of the trouble they may have in the performance of the trusts of
this my will, to be equally divided between them, their heirs or assigns.”
 |
| Frederick Forbes left the residue of his estate to his uncle, Alexander Forbes and James Crombie, his half sister Kitty's husband. |
Just
5 months later, in September 1841 Frederick was murdered.
“Intelligence was yesterday received at
Agra of the murder of Dr. Forbes, by Ibrahim Khan, the Beelochee chief of
Seistan. Dr. Forbes, under the protection
of Mohumud Reza Khan, the most influential chieftain in Seistan, had completed
the circuit of the lake [at Seistan] and visited all sites of interest in the
province, accompanied by one Persian servant. From the residence of Mohumud
Reza Khan he was escorted to Jehanabad, the fort of Ibrahim Khan, Beelochee,
and after remaining with that chief a few days, he left for Sash, with a party
of Ibrahim Khan’s horse for a guide. The
Khan joined him at a short distance from the fort; they breakfasted together in
a friendly manner, and Dr. F. was immediately murdered. Our report says, that
being attacked by a large hound brought out to hunt the hog, he shot it in
self-defence, and the Khan in a moment of irritation immediately fired on
him. The other and more probable story
is, that the Khan, on pretence of examining his arms, got possession of his
gun, pistols, and sword, then immediately gave the signal to his horsemen, who
seized the doctor, dragged him through the water of the lake until he was
half-drowned, and when he was brought out, the Khan shot him with his own
hand. His Persian attendant was
barbarously murdered a day or two after.[8]
Nearly
10 years with the East India Company, and he was dead at 34.
 |
| Direct male Forbes descendants of Theodore and Eliza Forbes |
Turning
now to Alexander Scott Forbes, son of Theodore and Eliza. He married Elizabeth
Cobb 29 June 1865 at Dundee, her father James was a Scottish weaver. Alexander
and Elizabeth had two children Catherine Forbes in June 1866[9] and
Frederick Forbes in February 1869[10]. Alexander
Scott Forbes was an insurance agent and comfortably placed financially, so much
so that they also fostered two other children Louis and Jenny Mudie[11]. Alexander
Scott Forbes died 7 April 1887[12] and by
1891 his widow Elizabeth and their son Frederick where living alone in the family
house 14 Ann Street, Arbroath, Scotland. Elizabeth’s income derived from her
husband’s estate whilst Frederick was a clerk with a shoe manufacturing
company.
 |
| Birth record for Frederick Forbes |
Alexander
and Elizabeth Forbes’s son Frederick married Agnes Low Petrie 27 December 1897
in Arbroath[13].
Agnes was a working girl and employed as a flax reeler, her father was a
hairdresser. Frderick and Agnes had 3 children, Elizabeth Ross Forbes born 1898[14], David Buik
Forbes born 1903[15]
and Ethel Agnes Forbes born 1904[16].
Frederick Forbes was a commercial traveller/shoe salesman, he died of pneumonia
in 1909 in Arbroath[17], the
death was registered by his brother-in-law Alexander Buik (who had married
Catherine, Frederick’s sister in 1888 in Arbroath) leaving Agnes with 3 young
children to bring up alone.
 |
| Birth record of David Buik Forbes |
The
vast fortune that had been left to Alexander Scott Forbes by his father
Theodore in his Will of 21 September 1820 was diminishing, In the Will Theodore
wrote days before his fateful demise: “To
my respected son Alexander Scott Forbes by the said Eliza Kewark [sic] and now in India where it is my wish that
he should remain, the sum of twenty five thousand 25, 000 Bombay Rupees.” A
handsome bequest for the day.
By
1920, Agnes’s eldest daughter Elizabeth had struck up a blossoming friendship with a fellow Scot, James A. Keith. He was a
grocer’s assistant and in December of that year sailed from Liverpool to New
York[18] with a
view to starting a new life. It is this
innocuous migration of an unrelated Scottish lad that would end up influencing
the remaining Forbes family to leave Scotland and start their own new lives in
the land of the brave and the free.
On
the 23rd June 1923 (Elizabeth) Lizzie Forbes sailed from Glasgow to
Boston to meet James Keith, a month later on the 6th August James
and Lizzie had married in Troy, Rensselaer, New York[19] a town
which would become the home of the migrated Forbes whose roots where originally
from India. Lizzie and Keith had two children, Ronald Bruce Keith born 1926
died 2006 and David Forbes Keith born 1929 died 1985.
Missing
her daughter and with nothing to keep her and the two remaining children in
Scotland, Agnes followed Lizzie to New York in September 1925[20], taking
David and Ethel with her. The three of them took up residence in Stow Avenue,
Troy, David found employment as a book-keeper whilst Ethel was a cashier.
In
1928 Agnes’s son, David Buik Forbes married a Scottish woman called Una Smith
moving just a few houses away in Stow Avenue. David and Una lived in several
locations but stayed in Troy for the rest of their days.
In
September 1929[21]
Agne’s daughter, Ethel married Alexander Smith a migrant Scot like herself.
With David and his sister Ethel now married, Agnes moved in with James, Lizzie and
their family, where she lived out her days, dying in 1939.
 |
| Image via findagrave.com |
Agnes
is remembered on a marker stone at Elmwood Hill Cemetery along with that of her
son-in-law James Keith who at the time of his death in 1956, had been the
manager of the Mohican Markets in Troy and Albany for 20 years. Agnes’s beloved
daughter Lizzie Keith died in 1963 and had been an integral member of the Fifth
Avenue Presbyterian Church choir for over 40 years[22]. Remembered
on the same memorial is one of James and Elizabeth’s children David Forbes
Keith.
David
and Una Forbes had two children a boy and girl and thus continued the direct
male Forbes descendancy from Theo and Eliza of Surat in India. David was a
salesman for over 20 years with the Tetley Tea Co and heavily involved with
community life in Troy whilst Una worked for the Denby’s department store and
became a well loved and trusted member of staff.
It
might come as a surprise that today there are living descendants in New York who
share the same common ancestors of Princes William and Harry, Scottish Theodore
Forbes and Indian Armenian Eliza Kevork.
[1]
For the personal papers of Theodore Forbes including letters from Eliza Kevork
to her daughter Kitty Forbes see GB 0231 University of
Aberdeen, Special Collections, MS2740: Ogilvie-Forbes, various family members
in India, including merchants William Forbes and Theodore Forbes, and in
military service, including Captain William Ogilvie and Dr Frederick Forbes: 19th century. http://calms.abdn.ac.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqServer=Calms&dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28RefNo%3D%27MS%202740%27%29
[2]
British Library: L/AG/34/29/344
[3]
Roll of the Indian Medical Service 1615-1930
[4]
British Library: Cadet Paper L/MIL/9-382
[5]
The International Journal of
African Historical Studies, Vol. 19, No. 4 (1986), pp.679-691. Frederick Forbes
left a manuscript journal record of his cruise along the Somali coast and
experiences in Berbera in 1833-1834.
[6]
Journal of Frederick Forbes, 29
February 1836
[7]
More details on Forbes's family
background and life appear in Roy C. Bridges, "An Aberdeenshire Family and
the Indian-African Connection in the Early Nineteenth Century," An African
Miscellany for John Hargreaves, Roy Bridges, ed. (Aberdeen, 1983), 5-10.
Forbes's Asian journeys of note were recorded in Journal Royal Geographical
Society, IX (1839), 409-430 and XIV (1844), 145-192. Forbes also wrote a
medical treatise, Thesis on the Nature and History of the Plague as Observed in
the North West Provinces of India ... (Edinburgh and London, 1840)
[8]
Agra Ukhbar, 16 September 1841
[9]
Scottish Statutory Registers: Births 272/ 0 319
[10]
Scottish Statutory Registers: Births 272/0 151
[11]
Evidence of this can be seen in the Scottish 1881 census
[12]
Scottish Statutory Registers: Deaths 272/ 124
[13]
Scottish Statutory Register: Marriages 272/ 1 199
[14]
Scottish Statutory Register: Births 272/ 1 539
[15]
Scottish Statutory Register: Births 272/1 70
[16]
Scottish Statutory Register: Births 272/1 442
[17]
Scottish Statutory Register: Deaths 272/1 19
[18] Ancestry.com: New York\u002C Passenger Lists\u002C 1820-1957
[19]
Troy Irish Genealogy Society Rensselaer County Marriage Index
Vols. 4 & 5
[20] Ancestry.com the New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957. Glasgow to New York 25 September 1925
[21]
Troy Irish Genealogy Society Rensselaer County Marriage Index
Vol. 9
[22]
The Troy Record, 25 March 1963
