An early entry for this topic. My honorary Bute ancestor will be shared by many of you, as he was Dr John Coombes MADDEVER, a well known Rothesay doctor who signed many of your relatives' death certificates. Another connection, in my case, is that (I am fairly sure that) one of my distant cousins was in domestic service in his household in 1881. I have mentioned Dr MADDEVER before, in a posting to the List in 1999, but this is a fuller report on him. There is a description of Dr MADDEVER in a book entitled "Glimpses of Rothesay and its people 50 years ago", written by J. Burnett Lawson MD in 1923, which is in the Rothesay Library. It records that: "I dare say that [Dr J.C. Maddever] is remembered by more people in Rothesay than the majority of the other persons I will have occasion to mention. He was the popular doctor of his time, and had an extensive practice in the town and over the island, and indeed beyond it, for in these days the doctors regularly went outwith the island to the Kyles of Bute and other parts. He was a man of strong individuality. A large built man, with a bulbous head and a benevolent cast of features, though somewhat cynical expression. A man of many paradoxes, dogmatic in his opinions, most energetic in his practice and the carrying out of his surgical beliefs. He practised in Rothesay for thirty years." The book contains a distinctive picture of the doctor, which supports the narrative description. Other facts that I have gleaned about Dr MADDEVER (who is not a relative of mine) are as follows. On the evidence of the 1881 census and/or his death certificate, he was born in England in about 1824 ("Family Search" indicates that this was in Linkinhorne in Cornwall). His parents were John MADDEVER, a Farmer, and Joanna COOMBE. He held the qualification(s?) of MDMC from Glasgow University. He was married twice, first to Isabella McPHERSON and then to Margaret Bell DUNCAN - Margaret was born in Rothesay in about 1831. He had a son, also called John Coombe MADDEVER and a doctor, born in Glasgow in about 1851, at the same address in 1881 and therefore perhaps in partnership with him. In 1881 Dr MADDEVER employed two servants, a coachman and a domestic servant, Mary MALCOM aged 15 - Mary was almost certainly a g.granddaughter of my g.g.g.grandfather, Gilbert TAYLOR of Skipness. He died in Rothesay in 1887 from blood poisoning (contracted perhaps in the course of his profession) Dr MADDEVER's first marriage was in 1846 in Glasgow. His second was in 1859 in Rothesay. (There are various spelling mistakes in the transcript of the 1881 census entry. MADDEVER is spelled MADDENER; Coombe is spelled Combe; MALCOM is spelled MALCOLM; and Mary's place of birth is given as Kilbride, Renfrew - it should be West Kilbride in Ayrshire. The last two of these discrepancies are the reasons why I am not claimimg to be absolutely certain she is my relative, but I am nearly certain that she is - my Mary MALCOM was a daughter of Archibald MALCOM, a local boat hirer, and was not with her family on that day.) Dr MADDEVER must have been a keen Freemason. There is a record that "on 21st January 1881, sixteen brethren met in McKinley's Hotel (now the Esplanade Hotel) to consider the formation of a new Lodge. Dr J. C. Maddever provided and processed a requisition signed by thirty-one brethren who were of the opinion that a new Lodge should be opened in Rothesay, and who pledged themselves to become members of it". However "the new Lodge was not a success numerically or financially". >From all I have read about him he would have been an interesting man to meet. Apart from anything else, he must have had a wealth of information about our ancestors, not all of it unrepeatable <g>. A Dr John Coombes MADDEVER (presumably the son, not the father) is listed in Kelly's Directory for Brownhills, Staffordshire, in 1884. Martyn