Alex Ferguson Family History

Alex Chapman Ferguson was born on December 31st, 1941 to Alexander and Lizzie Ferguson in the Govan district of Glasgow.  His father was a plater’s helper in the shipbuilding industry.  He grew up in a tenement on Govan Road and attended local schools.

Football provided a way out for him.  He began playing at a local youth club before signing a pert-time contract in 1960 with the Scottish football club St. Johnstone (he was also then working part-time at a Govan shipyard).  He became a full-time professional footballer with Dunfermline in 1964.

His footballing career ended in 1974 and he moved into management, first at St. Mirren and then at Aberdeen.  His greatest success, however, came at Manchester United, whom he joined as manager in 1986 and remained in charge until 2013.  During that period he won 38 trophies, including 13 Premier League titles, five FA Cups and two UEFA Champions League titles.

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Fergusons in Ayrshire

These Fergusons were first found in the small town of Stewarton in Ayrshire.  John Ferguson was a hand loom weaver there in the early 1800’s.  Two of his sons – John and Alexander – were booksellers.  Alexander died in Stewarton in 1892 at the age of seventy.

Alexander outlived his eldest son Robert.  Robert died in 1864 of typhoid fever when he was still in his early thirties.  But he left offspring.  There were two sons, John and Robert, with his partner Ann Scullion and another child (apparently) with Mary Nielsen as she claimed child support from him.

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Shipbuilding along the Clyde

Robert’s son Robert moved to Renton, a small town on the Leven river in Dunbartonshire, in search of work.  It is not recorded when.  However, he was settled there by 1880 with a partner and baby son and was working at a boatyard as a riveter.  He like his father died young, in his case of TB at the age of forty-one in 1896.

Sometime along the line this family was Catholic and Robert’s son John was raised Catholic.  His wife Janet came from a Protestant family and insisted that their son Alexander, born in 1912, be brought up Protestant.  John like his father was a riveter at Renton.  He fought in the First World War but was invalided out of it after being gassed  He was taken to a hospital in Glasgow and the family moved there to be closer to him.  He died in 1923, the third of his family in a row to die young (typhoid, TB, and now being gassed).

After his death his widow Janet married a man named Johnny Miller and the family moved to Belfast.  Her son Alexander Beaton Ferguson, having left school at fourteen, then worked at the Harland & Wolff yard before later returning to Glasgow and the shipyards at Govan.

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Alex Ferguson’s Family Tree

• Mathew Ferguson (b. 1752) m. Margaret Wyllie (b. 1756)
• – Agnes Ferguson (b. 1778)
• – John Ferguson (1782-1854)
• – Mathew Ferguson (b. 1784) m. Agnes Landess

• John Ferguson from Stewarton, Ayrshire m. Helen Paton (1784-1847)
• – John Ferguson (1808-1874)
• – Matthew Ferguson (1810-1853)
• – Alexander Ferguson (1821-1892)
• – James Ferguson (1823-1904)

• Alexander Ferguson from Ayrshire m. Jean Currie (1820-1904)
• – Robert Ferguson (1830-1864)
• – James Ferguson (b. 1841)
• – Helen Ferguson (1845-1881) m. John Cunningham
• – Andrew Ferguson (1847-1932) m. Mary McIntyre
• – Jean Ferguson (1851-1881) m. John Baird
• – Alexander Ferguson (1853-1919) m. Agnes Smith

• Robert Ferguson from Ayrshire m. Ann Scullion (1827-1894)
• – John Ferguson (b. 1853)
• – Robert Ferguson (1854-1896)

• Robert Ferguson from Renton, Dunbartonshire m. Catherine Mulhollan (1860-1894)
• – John Ferguson (1880-1923)
• – Mary Ferguson (b. 1883)
• – Catherine Ferguson (b. 1887)
• – George Ferguson (b. 1889)
• – Patrick Ferguson (b. 1891)

• John Ferguson from Dunbartonshire m. Janet (Jenny) Beaton (b. 1891) who later rem. Johnny Miller and moved to Belfast
• – Alexander Ferguson (1912-1979)
• – John Ferguson (b. 1913)

• Alexander Beaton Ferguson from Dunbartonshire m. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Hardie (1922-1986) in Glasgow in 1941
• – Alex Ferguson (b. 1941)
• – Martin Ferguson (b. 1942)

• Sir Alex Ferguson from Govan m. Cathy Holding in 1966
• – Mark Ferguson (b. 1968)
• – Darren and Jason Ferguson (b. 1972)