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I have been unable to discern if this player was the older brother of Willie and Jimmy McStay. The Litster files referenced in the article provide A DOB as circa 1891 in Ireland and a death date of November 1935 - this Francis was the Celtic players' brother, the family having moved from Antrim to Netherburn between his birth and Willie's. However, the details I have added to the article relate to Francis McStay born in Carluke (about 5 miles from Netherburn) who is the only other possible identity. By coincidence he also died young at about the same age. The 1892 Carluke year of birth appears on the Motherwellnet ref, so I have decided to go for that in the meantime as I didn't find anything from then or modern times stating that this player was the brother of the others, but it's possible a connection could have been missed as their careers didn't really overlap. I have seen both birth certificates and census returns, none of which mentions football, instead they were all coal miners, no shock there. Checking the families verged on comical, as it turned out the Carluke Francis (whose family came to Scotland a generation earlier) also had brothers called William and James, plus each had a Hugh, with more of that name further back, which in particular makes me think that they must be related, but I wasn't able to find the common ancestor. There was even another family of McStays of the same age with a William, James, Hugh and Francis among the brood, again from the same part of Ireland (the mother in all three cases was called Mary, but thankfully three different father names). This third Francis moved to Scotland in the early 1900s but died in 1909, obviously a shame for him but something of a relief for this purpose as that rules him out of the running for being the Motherwell player. Again I wasn't able to find a clear link between the family lines but I think they're all distant cousins. If anyone has come across this in a book etc either confirming this was Willie and Jimmy's brother or was not, please let me know (and that would also make it a lot less Original Research than it currently is). My head's a bit fried trying to solve it, part of the reason I'm writing it here so I won't have to remember it for the future. Crowsus (talk) 02:59, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
