Breaking Down those Brickwalls: Designations

To trace our Scottish family tree we begin by searching for birth, marriage and death certificates. Before 1855 we use church records but all too often we cannot find the records we need.

There are many reasons for ‘missing’ baptism records. It may be that the register was lost or damaged. By the mid 1800s, there were many different church denominations in Scotland, meaning you may need to look at many separate registers, not all of which are available online. To find out how to do this, visit our Learning Zone: Births, Marriages and Deaths in Scotland before 1855.

Even when you make a careful search, however, it may be that no baptism survives and you seem to have hit a brickwall in your research.

What we need to do now is be more imaginative, looking beyond the obvious records. In Scotland, a ‘designation’ is given in certain types of documents, particularly legal records. This designation was given to distinguish one person from another. At a time when many people did not know their date of birth and they certainly didn’t have a National Insurance (or Social Security number) or a postcode (or zip code), something was needed to identify the person mentioned in a document.

What is included in a Designation?

Generally, a designation will include the person’s name, residence and occupation. In the case of a child (and some adults) the father’s name may also be given along with his occupation and residence (it may also be stated that he is deceased). This information could help you get over a brick wall and continue on with your research.

Did you know?

A designation is the addition or description of a person. It is necessary in legal documents to design or identify the parties in such a manner as to distinguish them from all others; and in practice this was done by setting down the title of nobility, or the name and surname of the party, with his addition or description, by his estate, profession, trade, or place of residence. In certain instances it would also include the name of the party’s father.

The National Records of Scotland

Where do we find designations?

Legal records always give a designation. These may be criminal court records, wills and ordinary (civil) court records (such as ‘Actions of Affiliation and Aliment’) and sasine records (property records).

No matter what social class our ancestors were, there may be a legal record that survives and this could be the key we need to unlock our family tree.

Finding legal records

Wills are an easy place to start. Many Scottish wills are available on ScotlandsPeople and the index is free to search. You can search many sasine records (property records) in the National Records of Scotland.


We have indexed many Sheriff Court records and we update our index most weeks. You can search these for free (with no login or subscription) and just order the entry you need. Our index includes the designation. Click to see the entry for Agnew versus Carter in 1859, notice the pursuer is named as “Jane Agnew, daughter of and residing with John Agnew, Mason, Knockbrex, Penninghame”. We have also indexed some sasine records and deeds and we plan to add more.

Although prison registers do not generally give a ‘designation’ they do give an age and birthplace which can be helpful. The registers also tell us which court heard the case, and when the court records survive these give a designation. When you order a prison record from us we will tell you if there is (or may be) a corresponding court record. In fact generally, the person’s address is sufficient to identify which ‘John Smith’ we are talking about.

What to do next

Look over your family tree brick walls, which legal records might your family appear in? Did they own property, or were they more likely to end up in prison? Is there an illegitimate child in the family? Could there be a Sheriff Court record? Did your ancestor learn a trade? Then there may be an apprenticeship record.

Did you know?

Small words mean a lot!

‘Or’

Historically women were always recorded with their maiden surname in Scots legal documents. By the 19th century, it was the usual practice to record women with both maiden and married surnames in legal records. Let’s say our ancestor was born Margaret Scott and married James Thomson: we would expect to find her recorded as ‘Margaret Scott or Thomson’.

‘At’, ‘In’ and ‘Of’

The way the residence of a person is recorded is also important. The small words ‘at’ ‘in’, and ‘of’ all mean very specific things.

You can see the following example here on our website. “Aeneas McPherson of Flichity & Lachlan McIntosh in Nessendally” - Aeneas is described as ‘of Flichity’, the small word ‘of’ (instead of saying 'in' or 'at') shows that Aeneas McPherson had heritable possession of Flichity. This is a clue to more records. Lachlan, on the other hand, is described as “ Lachlan McIntosh in Nessendally” meaning Lachlan was a tenant of those lands.

In other records a person may be described as ‘at’ a place, this would indicate they were an occupier, not a tenant or owner.


Understanding these small, but significant words, can unlock your family tree. If you need more help just get in touch.

Whithorn Free Church Baptisms

One of the great things that happen about looking at old documents in the National Records of Scotland is that you find wee pieces of paper, a little note, a letter, a receipt or other things of the kind. They give an insight into the real people who created and used the records.

Looking today at the baptismal register of the Whithorn Free Church, 1843-1921 (which we will be indexing soon) I found a wee note that I thought I would share with you:

Bishop Sutton

Nr. Clutton

Bristol

Somerset

3 Dec 1923

Revd. Sir
Will you please get the Birth Certificate and send to me of John Montgomery son of William Montgomery Born in the year 1853 25 Dec and was baptised in the Free Kirk by the Revd. Mr Anderson.

PS What charges then are I will remit to you enclosed stamped directed envelope for reply

and oblige

Yours Truly

John Montgomery

© Copyright National Records of Scotland reference CH3/801/6 and Emma Maxwell of www.maxwellancestry.com

The first entry on the page where the letter was found is that of John, a male child, father William Montgomery, mother Mary McRobert. The father’s profession was given as a Farm Servant, and the child was born on December 26 1853 at Appleby - Glasserton and Baptised on 3 February 1854 by F.F. Anderson.

I love the fact that John, aged nearly 80, did not know his date of birth but did know who had baptised him! Or perhaps John was correct and the clerk wrote it down wrong in the register. We’ll never know now.

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

Decreet, Armstrong v Kirk - 2 September 1847

“Decreet, Armstrong v Kirk - 2 September 1847”, sounds innocuous enough, you may think. Not far into this particular decree, though, we find out some very useful genealogical information. The following decree is taken from a so far unindexed volume of the Jedburgh Sheriff Court Register of Decreets (or Decrees). Much of the material in these volumes concerns the resolution of financial disputes and the like. Interesting perhaps, but not as useful to the genealogist as the paternity cases interspersed amongst the courts business.

After 1855 we generally know if there was a paternity decree as it would normally be recorded on the civil registration birth certificate. Before 1855, however there may be very little information. Sometimes we can find an entry in Kirk Session minutes, but these have not always survived, and not all families were members of the Church of Scotland or one of the other leading Presbyterian churches which kept such records. Even when such minutes survive, the entries may give only very limited information regarding the parents.

Sometimes we see an illegitimate child use a father’s surname (often this is the case in the early census returns), and we may speculate as to the identity of the father. Sheriff Court decrees like the one shown in the extract below can enable us to positively identify the father of an illegitimate child and therefore overcome a brick wall in our family tree. The decree is often only the starting point, as in many cases the processes also survive. The processes are court papers which often give us much more information than the decree and help us to see the case from the perspective of both the pursuer and the defender.

I am pleased to say work has now begun on indexing these wonderful records. Watch this space!

In the margin we read:

Decreet

Armstrong

v

Kirk

2d September 1847

The body of the text reads as follows:

At Jedburgh the Twenty eighth day of July and the Sixteenth day of August Eighteen hundred and forty seven years Sitting in Judgment John Craigie Esquire Sheriff Substitute of the County of Roxburgh in an action raised before the Sheriff Court of the said County at the instance of Jemima Armstrong Daughter of and residing with William Armstrong Blacksmith in Morebattle Pursuer against William Kirk Blacksmith in Morebattle defender. The Sheriff Decerned and Ordained and herby Decerns and Ordains that the said William Kirk Defender to make payment to the said Jemima Armstrong Pursuer of the sum of One pound of inlying expenses of a male bastard child of which the pursuer was delivered on the twentieth day of March eighteen hundred and forty seven of which the said William Kirk is the father. Item of the sum of one pound ten shilling per quarter for three quarters of nursing fee. Item of Four pounds per annum of aliment thereafter payable quarterly and per advance which aliment is to continue until the said child shall arrive at the age of ten years unless the said defender shall when the child shall attain the age of seven years offer to take it to his own home and provide suitably for it reserving to the said child its relations to apply and shew cause for a continuance of the aliment after it shall arrive at the age of ten years and to the Defender his Defences as accords. Item of Interest on the several sums as they have become or may become respectively due until paid. Item of the sum of Three pounds & eight pence of Expenses of process and Item of the sum of four shillings as the dues of Extracting this Decreet and of Recording the same. And I the said Sheriff &c

Written by Geo. Henderson Collated by I Stewart Newbigging

Taken from Jedburgh Sheriff Court, Register of Decrees (NRS reference SC62/7/9, pages 4 and 5).

This record now helps us to identify the William Kirk or Anderson seen here in the census of 1851 as the child of William Kirk seen here. Hopefully unravelling a little mystery for the Armstrong family!

Do you have this type of mystery? I hope the indexes that we are going to make available soon will help. In the meantime email me with your genealogical queries and we will see what we can do.

www.maxwellancestry.com

New book - Glenkens Free Church Baptisms 1841-1857

This book contains a transcription of the baptisms found amongst the Kirk Session records of the Glenkens Free Church, Dalry, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, covering the period 1841-1857. The original records are held by the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh, and it is believed they have not been transcribed or indexed before.

We have included all the entries from the register up to 1857, shortly after the beginning of civil registration in Scotland in 1855. The level of detail is somewhat inconsistent, but the date of birth and occupation of the father, as well as the full names of both parents is given in most entries. This is a very rural area, and therefore we find only sixty baptisms recorded during this period.

Visit our website to buy the Glenkens (Dalry) Free Church Baptism Register (It's only £3.99) - www.maxwellancestry.com

Kelso Relief Church Baptisms 1813-1819 - £6.99

This book contains baptisms found in the volumes of the Kirk Session records of the Relief Church Congregation of Kelso, Roxburghshire, for the period 1813-1819. These records are held by the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.

These entries are separate from and supplement the Church of Scotland Old Parish Registers kept by the General Register Office (Scotland) at New Register House in Edinburgh, and it is believed they have not been transcribed or indexed before. Many entries in this register are not to be found in the Old Parish Registers.

We have included all the baptism entries from the register that survive. A later, or “new” register is referred to on the last page of this register, but its present whereabouts, if it has survived, is unknown.

Buy your copy now!

Parish Register update – Dumfries Buccleuch Street U.P. Church Baptisms 1846-1856

We have again published baptisms not found in the OPR’s and therefore when you search Scotland’s People and the IGI you are not searching these records.

Do you have Dumfriesshire relatives but can’t find their birth record? This is the book for you. Here a couple of examples from 1848:

Name of Child - Margaret Corrie

Sex – F

Father - William Corrie, Farm Servant

Mother - Mary Anne Jardine

Date and Place of Birth - Feb. 13, Glenhowan, Caerlaverock

Date of baptism and by whom - March 2^nd, Marshall N. Goold

Name of Child - William Mills (illegitimate)

Sex – M

Father - Robert McBurnie, Servant

Mother - Margaret Marchbank

Date and Place of Birth - Jan. 22, Annan, Queensberry Arms Inn

Date of baptism and by whom - Nov. 6, Marshall N. Goold

© Kirk Session records — National Archives of Scotland references CH3/83/10 © Transcription and indexes — Copyright Graham Maxwell Ancestry 2010.

Published by Graham Maxwell Ancestry - Cleughside, Kirkpatrick Fleming, Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, DG11 3NG

Because this is a record of the United Presbyterian Church, people from outside Dumfries would have brought their children to be baptised. Here are some questions and answers about the register.

Where have these records been found?

The transcription below is of baptisms found amongst the Kirk Session records of the Buccleuch Street United Presbyterian Church, Dumfries, Scotland, for the period 1846-1856. These Kirk Session records are held by the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.

These entries are separate from and supplement the Church of Scotland Old Parish Registers kept by the General Register Office (Scotland) at New Register House in Edinburgh, and it is believed they have not been transcribed or indexed before.

What entries have been included?

We have included all the baptism entries from the beginning of the register until 1856, just following the introduction of civil registration in Scotland in the year 1855.

How can I see the original entry for a person I have found in this publication?

The original records are to be found at the National Archives of Scotland, HM General Register House, 2 Princes Street, Edinburgh EH1 3YY, and can be consulted there under the reference CH3/83/10. At this time these records are not available on-line, but if you wish to contact us we would be pleased to help you obtain copies.

Visit our bookshop and buy your copy now