Breaking Down those Brickwalls: Scottish Sheriff Court Records

James Anderson - Crown copyright NRS SC5/8/434

An Amazing Discovery

We have found what may be one of our best discoveries ever! As evidence in an affiliation and aliment case (paternity case) there is an ambrotype (an early type of photograph) of the accused man dated pre-1860. It was bundled up in a box of court records.

The man pictured here is James Anderson, a wood carter who was living at Arbeadie Cottage, Banchory Ternan, Kincardineshire. (Click here to see the entry in our index - NRS, SC5/8/434). To make sure no damage comes to this amazing item the conservation branch at the National Records of Scotland have removed it from the bundle and work will now be undertaken to preserve this piece of history.

Example from another case NRS Ref: SC62/10/390

Court Records

For longer than we might expect, women have been taking the fathers of their children to court to compel them to pay maintenance for their children. In Victorian Scotland these cases were most often heard in the Sheriff Court. The most common type of case is ‘Affiliation and Aliment’, that is a case that proves ‘affiliation’ or paternity and decreed how much ‘aliment’ or maintenance should be paid by the father. If your ancestor was illegitimate their mother may well have taken the father to court.

Decree

At the end of most cases a decree would be made, this was legally binding. You could pay for an extract of the decree so that you could keep a copy. There were various reasons people might want an extract of a case but they were not always made.

From the 1830s most Scottish Sheriff Courts kept a volume of extracted decrees. So let’s say someone went to the court and asked for an extract, they would be given one and the court would write the extract into a book. We are indexing these books. See our coverage page here.

Processes

As well as the volumes of decrees the court would also keep the process, or paperwork, related to the case. These include witness statements and can include love letters. This week we found a case that included this ambrotype!

Birth Certificate

From 1855 all ‘affiliation’ cases which reached decree resulted in a correction being made to the register of births. This means that you usually know which court to start your search in. This particular case was settled, so it did not reach decree. This means that there is no note on the birth certificate naming the father of the child.

Indexing

With the help of a volunteer we are indexing the volumes of extracted decrees. Although these do not contain all cases, they do contain many of them. When a client orders a pre-1860 decree we let them know how many boxes we need to search to find the court process, or the more detailed paperwork. We charge £30 to search three boxes. As we search for the client’s case, we also note all other ‘paternity’ cases in the box and add them our index. If you would like us to search some records for you please get in touch.

This is what we were doing last Tuesday when we found the case that contained the ambrotype. The case can be seen here in our index. If you would like us to make a search for you just email me.

Brick Wall

Having an illegitimate ancestor is a major cause of family history brickwalls. We hope our indexing project will help break these down. If you would like us to search some boxes for you please just get in touch, I can’t promise to find a photograph for you but who knows what we will find!

Learn More

If you would like to learn more about Scottish Sheriff Court records or our indexing project, please see our Learning Zone.

Breaking Down those Brickwalls: Scottish Death Certificates

New Register House, Edinburgh

As is the case with birth and marriage certificates, 1855 is a great year from a genealogist's point of view.

In this first year of registration Scottish death certificates included the following information:

Date, time and place of death, usual residence, deceased's name, sex, marital status, age and occupation, the deceased's place of birth, spouse's name, both parents' names (including the mother’s maiden surname) and whether deceased, occupations and whether they were deceased, the names and ages of children (or age and year of death if the child pre-deceased the parent), cause of death, duration of last illness, doctor's name, when the doctor last saw the deceased alive, place of burial, the name of the undertaker and details of the informant.

Much of the bounty of information recorded in 1855 was sadly not continued after that year. From 1856-1860 you can expect to find the name, marital status, occupation, date, time and place of death and usual residence, full names of both parents and whether deceased, cause of death, duration of disease and doctor's name, place of burial and undertaker's name, and details of the informant.

Did you know?

By looking at your ancestor's death certificate between 1855 and 1860, or even that of a close relative such as a sibling, you may get a clue as to where the rest of the family were buried. If it was a family plot you may then be able to trace your ancestors using transcriptions of the gravestone, if it has survived. It’s not unusual to find three generations recorded on one gravestone!


Find out more about Scottish civil registration on our website: http://www.scottishindexes.com/learningcivil.aspx