The Kirk Sessions - More than just fornication cases!

Canonbie Kirk as it is today

We often turn to the Kirk Sessions to look for cases of fornication when our ancestors were illegitimate. If it was discovered that a child was born to unmarried parents the couple would be brought before the Kirk Session, this was a group of men who would investigate ‘sins’ and discipline congregation members. The minutes of the Kirk Session are a wonderful resource when you are tracing your Scottish family tree and by far the most frequent cases are those of fornication but they are not the only ones you may come across.

While searching the records for a client today we found an entry in the Canonbie Kirk Session which is really very sad and quite different from the usual type of case. The entry has the National Records of Scotland reference CH2/1582/1/2:

1 August 1736

Canonbie Grave Yard 

“The session being informed that several people make graves in the church yard without acquainting the Beddel [Beadle] and sometimes encroach upon the property of others And John Armstrong having apprehended Gilbert Elliott in Broomiknow makeing a grave for a child of his complained to the Minester who ordered him to be summoned to the session which summons the session sustains and they resolve to rebuke him severely for his disorderly practice for a terror to others and if they do not desist to apply to Mr Lang chamberlane [likely Water Laing, chamberlain to the Duke of Buccleuch] to use his endeavours to prevent it But understanding that the said Gilbert is out of the countrey they order him to be summoned again to the session when he returns.”

Obviously you couldn’t have people going and digging up graveyards but it makes you wonder why the bereaved Gilbert Elliot had done it in the first place. Other than the fact that we learn that a daughter of Gilbert Elliot died (it doesn’t name the daughter) there is not a lot of genealogical information but it is interesting and it could help you understand your ancestors. So perhaps next time you are in the National Records of Scotland it may be worth looking at the Kirk Sessions even if you don’t have illegitimate ancestors!

More collections go online - Scottish Marriages and Deaths

We have added two more collections to our online indexes: marriages/banns and deaths/burials.

As with our online birth/baptism search which we announced earlier this week you can now search all the entries in our pre-existing indexes in book form plus some new ones not available before. All of these are indexes of pre-1855 records that for some reason do not appear in the Church of Scotland Old Parish Records, or OPRs. This means when you search scotlandspeople.go.uk these records do not show up.

How does it work?

Deaths/Burials:

You can search by Forename, Surname, Year of Death, County of Death, Parish of Death, or a combination of the above. As with searching the census, less is often more. Perhaps the person didn’t die when you expect or not in the location you expect. Married or widowed females are often recorded only under their maiden surname and first names and surnames appear under an amazing variety of spellings.

Here’s how the search page looks:

Marriages:

When you search for a marriage you can search by either the Groom’s Name, the Bride’s Name or both. The results show:

 “Groom’s Name”, “Bride’s Name”, “Year” and “Register”.

Remember that the register and place of residence are not necessarily the same thing. With this in mind, we have also indexed by parish of marriage (or most likely parish of marriage), which at times may be different from the parish name on the register. If people attended a non-Church of Scotland Church they may have travelled across parish boundaries to be married by the minister of their choice. Also if the couple were from different parishes the banns would have been read out in both. Not all registers specify where the marriage took place, in these cases we have indexed the parish as the parish the register was kept in.

The full entries of the birth, marriage or death costs just £1.50 and you can pay through PayPal.

Remember you can also search our other indexes online, here’s a list of all our indexes:

Parish Register Births

Parish Register Marriages

Parish Register Deaths

Prison Registers

Sheriff Court Paternity cases

1841, 1851 and 1861 Census

Search on-line today 

www.maxwellancestry.com

Maxwell Ancestry, a member of the Scottish Genealogy Network

Hobkirk Kirkyard photos

I had an enjoyable day out in the Scottish countryside today. It was a very cold but very sunny day. As traditionally gravestones face east I made a fairly early start to ensure I could catch the morning sun hitting the front of the stones.

I was looking for a particular stone, which I found quickly, but as I was there on such a beautiful day I decided to photograph all the gravestones in the older part of Hobkirk Kirkyard. An example is shown below, but someday we will try to make them all available online. In the meantime if you are looking for a particular grave e-mail me and I’ll see if I can find it for you.

In Memory Of

James Binnie Oliver son of

George Oliver Shepherd in Gatehous-

ecott who does at Carolcroft

June 21st 1853 Aged 20 years

Also

George Oliver who dies at Burnfoot Sept. 12

1878 Aged 76 Years.

Also

Elspeth Murray wife of George Oliver

who died at Gatehousecott, March 13th, 1862,

aged 62 years.

Also Robert Barnes their son in law

who died at Hawthornside 18th July 1894.

Aged 57 years

Also Elizabeth Oliver his wife who died

at Kinninghall 17th Aug. 1917, aged 86 years.

Records of Scottish Quakers 1669-1867

Update - December 2014
You can now search Quaker births and marriages on our new website www.scottishindexes.com


I was in the National Records of Scotland (formerly the National Archives of Scotland) yesterday and consulted a lot of interesting records. One register I consulted (which I haven’t had the need to consult before) was Records of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Digest of births, marriages and burials, Scotland 1669-1867. (NAS reference CH10/1/64).

The volume is a digest of birth, marriages and deaths from the various record books around Scotland. Whilst I didn’t find what I was searching for, it may contain what you are looking for! The books is a transcription of records dating back to 1669 and continues to 1867. A bonus I discovered yesterday is that it is alphabetical; making it much quicker to search.

Here’s an entry that caught my eye:

Book: 17

Page: 123

Name: Wood, George

Date of Death: 14^th of January 1762

Age: [Blank]

Residence and Description: Ednam. Weaver and Bleacher

Date of Burial: 16^th of January 1762

Place of Burial: Kelso

N.M. for Not Members: [Blank]

Monthly or other Meeting Record: Kelso Mo Mg

So if you can’t find a birth, marriage or death in Scotland have you considered the possibility your family were Quakers? If you would like it searched e-mail me and I’ll see what I can do: info@maxwellancestry.com

www.maxwellancestry.com

Chirnside Burials 1817-1854 - £8.99

This book contains a transcription of the registers of deaths or burials for Chirnside parish, Berwickshire which are to be found amongst the Kirk Session records for Chirnside parish held by the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.

The main register, Volume 7, commences in January 1817, and the last burial entry in this volume is from August 1841. Another burial register is contained in Volume 8, which commences in August 1841, and we have transcribed until the year 1855, when civil registration of deaths commenced in Scotland.

These entries are not to be found in the Old Parish Registers of Chirnside parish kept by the General Register Office (Scotland) at New Register House in Edinburgh (the burials for Chirnside in the Old Parish Register end in 1815), and it is believed they have not been transcribed or indexed before.

Buy Chirnside Burials 1817-1854 - £8.99