Jedburgh prison index now available

After weeks of hard work Graham has finished indexing Volume 2 of the Jedburgh prison registers. We really hope this will add a bit of interest to your family trees and they are also very useful. For example, if your ancestors come to the Borders from Ireland and ended up in Jedburgh Prison it’s just possible you can get a place of birth from the prison register that you will not get anywhere else. The book is available to purchase on our website; here is a little information about it:

Jedburgh Prison Index, Volume 2 1848-1869 - This index is in the same format as our previous prison indices, and contains details of the crime the prisoner was accused or convicted of. It is a large volume, running to 4,061 entries. Many of the people of the Scottish Borders and beyond are recorded. The Jedburgh Prison Index, Volume 2 is available for £12.99, with our usual bulk discounts and postage rates for publications applying.

Visit our website to buy the volume and add some colour to your family tree!

Obtain a full register entry

If you find an entry or entries in one of our prison indexes for which you would like to see a full transcription, please e-mail us. You can see a sample prison transcription by clicking here. For a fee of £5.00 per entry, the transcriptions will be sent to you promptly via e-mail. The fee also includes a free copy of the transcription together with a free copy of the original register pages covering your entry mailed to you anywhere worldwide.

Visit our website now for more information and to order your ancestors records

1851 census for Kells now online

We have been making great progress with www.maxwellancestry.com. Various new records are now online and more will be coming shortly as well as new books, some of which will be ready in the next day or two.

The big census update is 1851 Kells, Kirkcudbrightshire; this is now in the database and also available from our bookshop. We have also added more household links, general notes and prison links to the database.

Regarding the prison indexing project, Graham has now indexed the second Jedburgh volume and is proof-reading it now so it should be on sale within a couple of weeks. He has now also started work on the next Scottish Borders prison, which is Kelso. Although various links will appear in the census database from now this is not by any means a search of the prison registers themselves. In fact less than 1% of the prison entries have any link with the census records at present. Therefore if your ancestors are from the Borders area it is best to check in the actual prison index. If you do not already have a copy they are available from our bookshop.

The mapping is also continuing, Hawick and Wilton parishes are next, these may take some time though! Big towns always seem to slow up the census mapping project!

I’ll let you know when the new Jedburgh prison book is ready.

Looking for the perfect gift? I have the thing just for you!

Graham and I have been researching other people’s genealogies for years now and we have combined that expertise with beauty and luxury to create a perfect gift package. We research the genealogy, collate the documents, photographs and stories we have gathered along the way and write a personal family history book. Then we have it hand bound in beautiful fabric, or even in leather. We also create a beautiful chart, which is a great visual way to experience your family tree.

These bespoke family tree packages start at £500 and each one is customized to suit the family we create it for. Have a look at our new website www.familytreegift.co.uk and see for yourself what wonderful items these books really are.

New parishes online from our Valuation Roll

As promised I have updated our website with some more parishes from our Dumfriesshire Valuation Roll. We now have Annan, Applegarth, Caerlaverock, Canonbie, Closeburn, Cummertrees, Dalton, Dornock, Dryfesdale, Dumfries, Dunscore and Durisdeer all online. One thing to note though: both Dumfries and Annan are the landward parts of the parish only, the burgh sections were in a separate volume.

The last time we were in the National Archives I was discussing just how valuable these valuation rolls are. I love them, and the National Archives have been doing a lot of work digitizing the volumes to make them even easier and faster to search. Most of the local archives or libraries in Scotland also tend to have the volumes for their area so if you are in Scotland but not near Edinburgh they are still accessible. I know I have used the volumes at the Ewart library in Dumfries a number of times both to research the history of a house and genealogy.

If you are not familiar with this great resource have a look at the National Archives website or look at the volume we have online to see for yourselves what a great resource they are. They can really help to fill in the blanks between the census and also there is no 100 year closure are very helpful from 1901/1911 right up to 1989!

I mentioned digitizing these volumes, although volumes exist for every year from 1855 onwards, they have so far been indexed only every tenth year, but at intervals half-way between each census year, from 1855-56 up to 1915-16. These digital images are only available in the National Archives at present, which is quite a shame for those of you not living in Scotland.

We can search them for you and offer very reasonable prices for all our research in Edinburgh or other local libraries. We have details on our website or just email me with the details of what you are looking for and I will give you a price.

1841 Half Morton, Dumfriesshire now online

Well for the first time since our census mapping site was uploaded in September 2009 we have updated it with new census material. We have transcribed 1841 Half Morton, Dumfriesshire as well as publishing it in book form (available for £5:99) as usual we have also added to the website database. Start searching for your Half Morton Ancestors today!

If you are interested in Dumfriesshire then remember we have a vast collection of historical and modern photos of Dumfriesshire on our website. We also a part of a Dumfriesshire valuation role online. Actually I will be adding more pages to the online valuation role in the next day or two so keep checking the site for updates.

Harsh punishment for Michael

As work continues on the seemingly endless Jedburgh Prison book Graham is transcribing he came across entry that we thought may be of interest.

20 May 1861

Michael Gallacher, labourer at Newcastleton, single, aged 60, born in Ireland, 5' 6", 157 lbs on admission, 151 lbs on release, in apparent good health, can read a little, but cannot write.

Tried 3 June 1861 for the crime of the theft of a handkerchief, sentenced to 3 days imprisonment, total; time in jail 17 days, conduct good.

New Feature added to our fee census

We have just added an automatic maiden name search!

Try searching in the 1861 Census for "Elizabeth Grieve" located in the parish of "Roberton".

www.maxwellancestry.com/census

The only result will be Elizabeth G. Beatie, when you click to see the transcription you will see that Grieve was her maiden name. The maiden name has been automatically searched; this should help when researching female relatives especially if you don’t know whom they married! Not all married females have been entered in this way however as time goes on more and more will appear.

If you have evidence for a maiden name (or alternative surname) and you would like us to add it to the census database, please email me.