Showing posts with label Scotland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scotland. Show all posts

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

10th: Fantastic news from NAS

Chris Patton's blog pointed me to the News section of the National Archives of Scotland - announcing that digital images of the Kirk Sessions, and other Church court records, are planned to go online next year sometime.
In the meantime, if you just happen to be in the Aberdeen or Orkney archives you can get a sneak preview.

Thursday, 1 July 2010

1st: Just noticed on FamilySearch

Noticed recently that Family Search Record Search Pilot now has Scottish Births and Baptisms 1564-1950
Much better than the IGI with its mixture of extracted and submitted data, and stopping at 1875 for extractions.
I've no idea how complete the data is, but I've successfully found some 1880s data I was looking for.

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Don't you just know it!

The minute that you run a major update, new findings always hove into view!

I'd been avoiding checking the newly available online (from ScotlandsPeople) Scottish OPR Deaths and Burials as I knew
a) they were very sparse records
b) often didn't have much conclusive details
c) that I'd get sidetracked from all sorts of things as a result.

Not even sure why I decided to check for something today, but for whatever reason I've started looking at some of the Roxburgh FAIRBAIRNs, and have already found the burial, or at least the mortcloth payment, for Archibald FAIRBAIRN of St Boswells, and a rather more puzzling, but very informative, entry for Margaret PURDIE nee FAIRBAIRN and her son William, in the Melrose OPRs.
The least of the puzzle is trying to figure out where the family was in 1848, so if anyone can point me to what I interpret as Cairlion, presumably in the Parish of Melrose, I would appreciate it, as my web searches to date only bring up Arthurian references to Cair Lion.
The more major part of the puzzle is that it clearly states that son William PURDIE died the day after she did, and was aged 23, which age is plausible as Margaret and Charles PURDIE married in Melrose in 1821.
However, I already had a son William for this couple, whose 1864 marriage cert to Ann ROBSON says he was a 19 yr old shepherd, so born c 1845/6ish. Census data mostly corroborates this, although the 1901 transcription on ancestry does imply 1843ish. Whichever you believe, all point to a birthdate prior to the death of an older brother William in the family.
A closer search of the IGI showed I'd missed a couple of baptisms in Melrose for the family with mother Margaret spelt as Margt. The relevant FAIRBAIRN chart has been updated.