Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Parishes Ancient & Modern

As you may have seen we’ve now got pages on our web-site for the Counties of Berwick, Peebles and Selkirk. Those for Roxburgh should make an appearance soon. Some of these pages include more detail than others so if you can contribute to one of the pages get in touch with us either via this blog or through the contact form on the web-site (you’ll need to scroll down the page to find it). Please let us know about any mistakes or if you find a broken link.

A few weeks ago I was contacted by the local minister who wondered why Innerleithen and Traquair merited a page each whilst Walkerburn didn’t. For most part the parishes listed are the historic parishes not the current ones. Whilst there's nothing quite as formal as a cut-off date in practice it's those parishes that existed in 1855 the point at which Civil Registration was introduced to Scotland and the cut-off date for the Old Parochial Records held by the General Registrar's Office for Scotland (and available on the Scotland's People web site). Not that we’re totally consistent as Kirkhope and Caddonfoot do have their own page despite being 19th century creations which have now been absorbed by neighbouring parishes. However I did borrow the Church of Scotland Yearbook from the local minister and in time the parish pages will indicate what has happened to the ancient parishes – and where I can find one a link to the church web-site.

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