Topic: LONGEVITY

My oldest ancestor was probably Margaret Lyle, born in Glasgow on 14 October 1827 and died aged 98 in Australia. Margaret was the fourth of eight children born to surgeon Thomas Lyle and Margaret Cochrane, his cousin. As the daughter of a surgeon it could be surmised that Margaret led a comfortable early life, however her father was far more interested in bryology (the study of mosses) and in writing ballads (he was the author of “Kelvin Grove”) than surgery. By 1851while Dr. Lyle occasionally practiced surgery in the little town of Airth in Stirlingshire, where the last three children were born, Margaret (then aged about 23) and two of her younger siblings were in Glasgow earning a living.

Margaret probably met her future husband Alexander Johnston, a cabinetmaker and a little younger than her, through their church. They married on 25 March 1853, Alexander’s birthday, in Glasgow.

Their first son Charles arrived in December 1854 in Airth. He was less than a year old when his parents embarked on the new clipper “Storm Cloud” for Australia the following year, with Margaret already pregnant with her second child George who arrived three weeks after their voyage ended. The long sailing voyage must have been difficult for Margaret, heavily pregnant and probably still grieving following the loss of her mother just before they departed.

The family settled in Launceston in northern Tasmania. A daughter was born in 1858. Ten years later, which must have been a surprise, another son (my grandfather) was born in 1868.

Margaret and Alexander lived in the same house until Alexander died aged 76 in 1906. Margaret survived him by almost 20 years, dying aged 98 at the home of their eldest son Charles in Sydney.

Their story is told in more detail at https://nancyvada.me/alexander-johnston-margaret-lyle-tasmanian-pioneers/

It is curous about Margaret’s longevity. It does not look like heredity had much influence. Her paternal grandparents only lived to 30 and 32 (probably succumbing to cholera or similar) and her father was 67. Her maternal grandfather was 53 and her mother 57. Of her siblings, the next oldest were the sisters Mary Anne and Amelia, 74 and 85 respectively, who also emigrated to Tasmania. “Something in the water??”

Margaret Lyle’s children were 78, 67 and 84 respectively (one other son drowned in a shipwreck at 29). Her 67 year old daughter Margaret Johnston (whose husband FJA Huxtable lived to 72, his father to 83 and grandfather Dr. William Huxtable (1791-1887) to 87, had four children 85, 90, 77 and 81 and most of their grandchildren and great grandchildren are also long-lived. A Huxtable longevity gene? Certainly modern medicine must play a part. But still ….Does that mean that I, another great granddaughter of Margaret Lyle, may just possibly reach 100???