The Scottish Genealogy Blog: April 2015

Thursday, 30 April 2015

The people behind the names

The Kelso Dispensary

When you trace your genealogy you research the names, the dates and the places. This has to be step one. The second step, though, is digging a little deeper and finding out extra details that can help you understand somebody’s life.

Take this entry in the 1851 census of Stichill, Roxburghshire: Margaret Guthrie, aged 73, born in Greenlaw, married to James Guthrie. James and Margaret have a daughter living with them, her name is Alison and she is 30 years old. You can see the full entry on our website.

Tracing James and Margaret back to the 1841 census we see they that are living in the same house. A quick search online tells us that James Guthrie married Margaret Waddel in 1807, in Stichill.

Using these common genealogy tools we have learn something of James and Margaret. What else can we learn? Thanks to a generous contribution through our ‘Sponsor an Index’ scheme we can learn something remarkable.

When just 16 (in 1780) years of age Margaret was seen at the Kelso Dispensary due to ‘Obstructed Menses’. How scared she likely was as a young girl being seen by a physician in an age when this was very rare. We do not know how severe her condition was but it is possible that it is only because of the kind (and free) help of the Kelso dispensary that Alison was ever born.

The lesson for us, don’t be content with a list of names, dates and places; dig deeper, search more records and learn more about the lives of your ancestors.

Tuesday, 21 April 2015

The Kelso Dispensary

For the majority of people in 1777 there was no proper health care. Struggling to simply feed and clothe their children, most families couldn’t afford to see a doctor or buy medicine from the apothecary. This meant that of course there was high infant mortality, and countless families left to rely on the parish for poor relief when the man of the house was taken ill, or died.

In Kelso a group of men and women wanted to change this and they founded the Kelso Dispensary. A charitable institution, it was founded by benefactors and subscribers. Each subscriber could ‘recommend’ people who couldn't afford to see a doctor and they would receive free healthcare.

The records that the institution left behind are fascinating. They record who visited the dispensary, which parish they were from, who recommended them, the date seen, the age of the patient, the disease and the outcome of the case.

We think it is fitting that the records of this charitable organisation are the first to be indexed by our ‘Sponsor an Index’ programme. The first 1,743 entries are now online for you to access for free.

We hope that these prove useful to you. If they don’t cover the period needed get in touch about our ‘Sponsor an Index’ programme and together we can get more of these records online.

UPDATE 18 March 2016: The indexing of volume 1 is now completed. There are now 2,561 entries online! Search online for free: www.scottishindexes.com

Sunday, 19 April 2015

Sponsor an Index

The Problem!

Just a few short years ago there was very little in the way of online genealogy indexes. Tracing your ancestry was slow and time-consuming. Today the world has changed, and many people can trace their family tree in Scotland using online records, perhaps getting back as far as 1800 in just a few hours!

Sometimes, though, we hit a roadblock. We may also be intrigued about the lives of our ancestors and want to dig deeper.

Even if we know that records exist that could help us further, if there is no index and we are not fortunate enough to live near the archive where these records are held, it can be very expensive to have someone research our family tree for us. What we need is an online index!

Large companies are working on this situation by indexing a large number of records, then selling subscriptions. This can be useful if the company has a large number of records that you want, but can be frustrating if you sign up to find out they don’t have the records that will help you.

We want to provide a free website, one which gives you the source reference of the original document so that you can go and view the original record for free, or if you can’t visit in person pay just a small fee for the record you need.

The Solution

We are finding that more and more clients ask us to search records that could also be useful to other researchers. This has left us with the conclusion that it may make more sense for individuals to ‘sponsor’ an index. This way the genealogy community as a whole only pays once for the indexing to be done. The index goes online for free and then all your distant cousins can use it too.

How it works

You sponsor an indexer to spend a set amount of time (in 30 minute blocks) to index a record of your choice, with a date range of your choice. That set amount of time will be spent on indexing the record you have chosen, and then the index will be made freely available online for everybody to access. As a sponsor your name will accompany the release of the new index entries, and will also remain permanently on our ‘Sponsor Appreciation Page’. Additionally, if the new index contains a specific entry you are looking for you will receive it free of charge.

We have a list of records ready and waiting to be indexed, but if you don’t see what you need get in touch and we’ll see if we can index the record you’re looking for.

30 minutes - £7

1 hour - £10

5 hours - £40

Most items held by the National Records of Scotland can be indexed, but there may be additional charges, get in touch and we’ll see what we can do. Search their catalogue to see what treasures they hold that we could help you access.

How much will be indexed?

How much can be indexed in a set period of time depends on the type of records involved. The ‘Notices of Admissions by the Superintendent of the Mental Institutions’ are one of the slowest records to index. A volume (one month) can take up to ten hours! Prison registers are among the quickest, with over 100 prisoner entries being possible in an hour. Once we know the record you are interested in, we can advise as to the amount we can likely index in the time available.

What to do next

Visit our ‘Sponsor an Index’ page on our website and choose how long you would like us to spend indexing the record of your choice. Add that time to the PayPal cart and proceed to the checkout. Once your payment is through I will email you and you can tell us what you would like us to index. You can find the list to pick from here.

Wednesday, 15 April 2015

A good dig through dusty documents!

One of the things I love about being a genealogist is that every day is different, you can never know exactly what you’ll find. I was looking through some Dumfries Sheriff Court processes the other day (on the hunt for ‘paternity’ cases) and came across a case innocuously entitled Jones v Lochmaben. As this bundle of folded papers tied up with string was larger than the others and appeared to contain some sort of notebook I untied the string to have a nose inside.

This lengthy case was regarding the ‘Nuisances Removal (Scotland) Act 1856’. It would seem that far from being the picturesque holiday destination that it is today, back in 1866 Lochmaben had a big problem with dung, pigsties and general filth.

Amongst the items was a large document entitled: “Report of list of Nuisances in the Burgh of Lochmaben on 6th and 7th November 1866”.

Within are contained the names and addresses of 182 households, detailing the condition of the property. I found this item fascinating, it tells us so much about the town that after reading a few entries you could almost smell the place!

Here are some excerpts:

No. - 140