Peasants to Puddles
My Family History - By Nicky Rowberry

James Johnstone - Grocer of Glasgow

It must be about 30 years ago that my Mum first gave me this photo of an unknown man standing proudly outside a shop declaring itself to be James Johnstone's. Mum had got the photo from her mother and as I knew we had Johnstones in the family it seemed a reasonable assumption that we were somehow related to said James Johnstone. So I spent the next 25 years (on and off obviously) trying to find out who this James Johnstone was and how he connected to our family.

Not knowing where the shop was made it a bit difficult to start with. The only clue on the photo is the number 1013 next to the door - suggesting that wherever it was, the street was quite long, so presumably in a large city. Since most of my Johnstones were in Lanarkshire it seemed likely that the shop was in Glasgow - this was about the only assumption I got right! Back when I first started looking into this you couldn't look at the 1911, 1901 or even the 1891 census, nor was there any internet - seems like the dark ages now! Of course I didn't even have a date for the photograph, so didn't know what time period I should be looking at.

So having checked out all my James Johnstones to see if any of them had become grocers or lived on a very long street and got nowhere, I decided to throw it out there to see if anyone else could help. I sent my photo into Your Family Tree magazine with a plea for help. Luckily my plea for help was answered by a very kind man called Colin who went to the Mitchell Library in Glasgow and looked through the Kelly's directories for Glasgow. And he found it! James Johnstone, grocer & spirit dealer, 1013 Cathcart Road, Glasgow, residence 51 Courthill Avenue, Cathcart - and he was there from at least 1924-1950. Not only did I now have a timeframe and place, but Colin even managed to track down a photo of 1016 Cathcart Road, i.e. the shop opposite, which had a reflection of the Johnstone shop in the window!

Armed with this new information I was lucky again in that my friend Polly was planning a research trip to Edinburgh and looked up James Johnstone for me. She found his death in 1956 at 51 Courthill Avenue - confirming that he was the same one who had the shop. The death certificate of course gave the names of his parents - James Johnstone and Elizabeth Reid.

At this point I thought I was sure to find the connection between this James Johnstone and my own Johnstones. Several years later and quite a lot of credits spent on the Scotlands People website, I've come to the conclusion there is no connection! As you can see from the tree below, I've tracked James Johnstone's family quite a long way back and can find no link with my Johnstones. If we are related it must be so far back that it's lost in the mists of time. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that my family somehow just acquired a photo of the Johnstone shop and kept it as a curiosity because they shared the name - much as I would do now if I found a photo with Rowberry on it.

Having done all this digging into this Johnstone family, it seemed a shame to just file it all away and forget about it. So I thought I might as well add this to the Peasants to Puddles website too - maybe it will be of some use to someone else out there - I hope so!

The family tree below summarises what I know about James Johnstone's family. It is hopefully reasonably accurate, but if you spot any errors, please let me know. I'd also be really interested to hear from anyone with a connection to this James Johnstone or his shop. E-mail me

To return to the main Peasants to Puddles page click Or to have a look at my own Johnstones page click

If any of the above is of further interest, please feel free to contact me at: n.rowberry@btinternet.com

© Nicky Rowberry 2012

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Peasants to Puddles - My Family History. By Nicky Rowberry