Talk:Charles Murchison (physician)

Suggestions and help needed, 16th July 2013.

Need clarification on Charles and his relation to Roderick Murchison. I've looked at Genealogy sites and have concluded that they are not cousins as indicated in DNB. Most discussions of the Murchisons repeat the claim however so there are no references to counter this. Hence my attempt to change the page was denied. Robert.

I have reverted your change to Charles Murchison (physician) since the cited source (Dictionary of National Biography) explicitly states 'cousin'. If you have a more trustworthy reliable source then please feel free to reinsert your change, but be sure to reference the source in the article. Cheers. Jan1naD (talk • contrib) 09:39, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

The information I have found on Genealogy sites shows Charles' father as Alexander and mother as Mary Copland, daughter of the Prof of Natural Philosophy, Patrick Copland of Aberdeen and Marischal, for whom there is a need of a wiki page! The parents of Alexander are given as Kenneth Murchison and Barbara Mackenzie. These are the same parents as for Roderick, so Charles's father is a Brother of Roderick. This makes Charles a nephew of Roderick not a cousin. Not the first time I have found family connections incorrectly reported in DNB. For Charles to be a cousin of Roderick then their fathers would have to be brothers. Kenneth's father is given as Alexander who was married to Margaret Mackenzie. That Alexander was thought to have been born before 1720 and he would have been over 70 when Alexander, the father of Charles was born around 1793, which is not likely.

Unfortunately I have not found any reference that does not use the faulty DNB family connection of cousin so can't provide a replacement source yet. Will keep looking -Robert