Lothians ancestors?

Back in December I posted a comment about discovering various Scottish Registers of Aliens, especially those held by Edinburgh City Archives.  Well now you can view images from some of these registers courtesy of the LothianLives blog.

Lothianlives features images and stories from the records held by the City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian archives.  If you’ve got ancestors from the Lothians, head over to http://lothianlives.org.uk to read about everything from the Edinburgh police to life in the New Town of Livingston via the German invasion of the Belgian village of Tildonk in 1914.

Thanks to Frances Woodrow over at http://ascottishaccent.blogspot.com/ for the news of this new resource.

Sheena


Did you know Scotland had its own Test Act?

I was browsing the Dumfries Kirk Session Minutes indexed online at http://www.dgcommunity.net/historicalindexes/default.aspx recently and came across several merchants in August 1689 who were being appointed as deacon and elders either regretting that they had taken “the Test” or saying that they had not taken “the Test”.
Now maybe there’s a massive gap in my knowledge, but I’d always thought that the Test Acts only applied in England and Wales so I’ve been doing some digging.  (By the way the 1911Encyclopedia at http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Test_Acts is better than Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Act for this.)

After the Restoration, in 1662  Charles II re-introduced Episcopalianism to Scotland under the “Act for the restitution and reestablishment of the ancient government of the church by archbishops and bishops” (http://www.rps.ac.uk/trans/1662/5/9).  The Test Act in England and Wales was passed in 1672.  There doesn’t seem to have been a similar Act in Scotland until 1681 when the “Act Anent Religion and the Test” was passed (http://www.rps.ac.uk/trans/1681/7/29)

The Dumfries Kirk Session indexes only start in 1689 so I don’t know if this Test Act was causing a problem before then.  William and Mary accepted the Scottish Crown on 11 May 1689, just before these Dumfries merchants were being ordained as elders and deacons.  However given that the act applied to “all magistrates, deans of guild, councillors and clerks of burghs royal and regality, all deacons of trades and deacon-conveners in the said burghs” the merchants could have been in an embarrasing position.
The Scottish Test Act was repealed in June 1690 by the “Act ratifying the Confession of Faith and settling presbyterian church government” (http://www.rps.ac.uk/trans/1690/4/45)
The National Archives of Scotland appear to have various listings in their online catalogue at http://www.nas.gov.uk/onlineCatalogue/ :
  • Aberdeen Test – subscribed by the barons PA7/25/2
  • Caithness Test  – signed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/8
  • Clackmannan Test – signed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/9
  • Dumfries (Stewartry of Annandale)  – Test subscribed by the freeholders PA7/25/11
  • Dunbarton  – Test subscribed by freeholders PA7/25/12
  • Edinburgh – Test subscribed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/13
  • Fife – Test subscribed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/14
  • Forfar – Test subscribed by the barons PA7/25/15
  • Inverness – Test signed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/17
  • Kincardine – Test subscribed by the barons and freeholders PA7/25/18
  • Kirkcudbright – Certificate by the clerk of the stewartry that the freeholders have taken the Test PA7/25/20
  • Lanark – Test subscribed by the electors PA7/25/21
  • Moray (Elgin and Forres) – Test subscribed by the barons etc PA7/25/23
  • Nairn – Test subscribed by the electors PA7/25/24
  • Peebles – Test subscribed by the freeholders PA7/25/26
  • Perth – Test subscribed by the small barons and freeholders PA7/25/27
  • Renfrew – Test subscribed by the freeholders and depute sheriff-clerk PA7/25/28
  • Ross – Extract Test subscribed by the barons, freeholders and feuars PA7/25/29
  • Roxburgh – Test subscribed by the freeholders PA7/25/30
  • Selkirk – Test subscribed by the freeholders PA7/25/31
  • Sutherland – Test subscribed by the heritors PA7/25/33
All of these tests appear to have been signed in 1685.
My brain hurts now!
Sheena

The Scottish Distributed Digital Library

I’ve just come across the Scottish Distributed Digital Library: a collection of links to digitised sounds, images and texts with Scottish themes on the internet.

The collection includes books, photographs, paintings, drawings and websites covering such diverse subjects as

  • Aberdeen-built ships
  • Ayrshire working lives photographs
  • Hand drawn maps of Cawdor parish dating from 1782
  • The Dictionary of Scottish Architects
  • Architectural plans and drawings
  • Photographs of Glasgow people and places
  • More maps than you can shake a stick at

and much much more!

Go and have a look at http://scone.strath.ac.uk/sddl/index.cfm – I’m sure you’ll find something relevant to your own family history.

Sheena

How many generations back can you trace?

1975 Golden Wedding celebration for Marcus Calder Campbell & Janet Russell Dickson

There’s been a discussion lately on one of the American genealogy blogs about how feasible it is to trace back through 10 generations of family history.

Leaving aside any arguments about “name hunting” as opposed to documenting a family’s history I thought it would be an interesting exercise to check the number of generations I’d traced for my own family.

My father’s ancestry is all Scottish, from the central belt of the country and on his side I can trace:

  • Generations 1-4: 15 out of 15 possible names (all of his great grandparents)
  • Generation 5: 16 out of 16 possible names (all of his great-great grandparents)
  • Generation 6: 15 out of 32 possible names (46% of his great-great-great grandparents)
  • Generation 7: 4 out of 64 possible names (6% of his 4x great grandparents)

and that’s it.

My mother’s family is all Scottish again but spreads across the borders, the Lothians and Caithness. On her side I can trace:

  • Generations 1-4: 15 out of 15 possible names (all of her great grandparents)
  • Generation 5: 16 out of 16 possible names (all of her great-great grandparents)
  • Generation 6: 12 out of 32 possible names (37% of her great-great-great grandparents)
  • Generation 7: 8 out of 64 possible names (12% of her 4x great grandparents)

and that’s it.

So what?

Well, it’s one way of stepping back and viewing the wood rather than the individual trees and leaves we normally concentrate on.

All but three of my Caithness ancestors are from the parishes of Halkirk and Bower where the Old Parish Registers don’t exist before 1780 – it’ll take a lot of luck and hunting in tenancy agreements held in Edinburgh to take them back any further.

I can see some ancestors who died post-1855 (the introduction of civil registration in Scotland) where the name of one parent is missing. I need to check that I’ve got the relevant certificates. If they died in an institution, I need to find out if those records survive and check to see if they contain further details.

and so on.

It’s been a useful exercise. I can see which families will need more research at archives in Scotland the next time I can grab a chance. I can also see families where more work with online sources, or in The National Archives at Kew, could bring results.

Have you ever stepped back to get an overview of your research?

How did you do it?