Register of Marriages in Castleton Parish

It was an autumnal Sunday; the 15th September.

The 258th day, of the 37th week, of 1771.

At the bottom of the page was a faintly scrawled, Finis. It was the end for 23,712 days. Not until William Boag was married to Margaret Elliot, the eldest surviving daughter of Thomas Elliot, farmer, in Kirndean, Castleton, on the 17th August 1836, by the Rev. Angus Barton was the “Register of Marriages in Castleton Parish” reinstated.

What happened that Sunday, in 1771, to the keeper of the Castleton marriage register: did he die, or walk away from his job on some principle, or are the subsequent registers simply lost ?

It wasn’t from the lack of local ministers, in fact on the last page of 1771 entries, there are not one but two marriages for Castleton ministers, the Rev Robert Rutherford and the infamous Rev W James Fletcher.

At this point I have to declare my interest, my grandmother was Hannah Jane Murray Elliot who herself was married in Newcastleton in 1913 and both her parents were Elliot also married in the village so the missing marriages are a real blight on genealogy research. For many years Thomas Elliot my great, great maternal grandfather living at 14 South Hermitage Street was the local grocer.

Looking at dates and churches and ministers in Castleton between 1771 and 1836 for some reason why all these years marriages are missing I haven’t been able to come up with anything and it would be worth reading all the session records to see if any clues lie there. The villagers were certainly very active in church life, particularly the Secessionists who broke away and formed their own churches and the furore over the Rev James Fletcher who resigned over an accusation which amounted to heresy. In addition Henry Scott, the 3rd Duke of Buccleuch, moved the villagers to a new site in 1793, probably because where they were in the old village of Castleton was better for his sheep rather than “to found a hand loom weaving centre” but the facts of the move seem to be rather censored.

A thriving church community; villagers deeply interested in the affairs of a number of churches, particularly for the size of the village. It’s hard to believe that marriage records weren’t kept from 1772-1835. I’m sure they were simply mislaid when one of the numerous church moves were made.

The recommencement of entries in 1836 could be easier explained as the “Act for Marriages in England 1836” came into being. This legalised the concept of civil marriage into England & Wales from 1st January 1837. So this may have precipitated the restart although Newcastleton is in Scotland it’s on the border. Since the Marriage Act 1753, the only legally recognised marriages in England & Wales (with the exception of Jews & Quakers) were those performed in a parish church by a clergyman of the Church of England. This meant that Roman Catholics and members of other dissenting congregations, as also atheists, Muslims, Hindus or members of any other religious body, had to be married according to (the Anglican) rites and ceremonies which they did not support.

 So I make a plea to the local Border historians get this matter better known and get everybody to search the old lofts and churches and likely places. If they can come up with a lost Michelangelo anything is possible.

This is a guest blog by Strath Stewart to celebrate Everybody Writes Day.

Births, Marriages and Deaths in British India

The Families In British India Society, is building a database of intimations in the Times of India newspapers. The database currently contains births, marriages and deaths from 25th July 1859 to 1909.
It took me a long time to spot the surname search for this database, so I've ringed it in red on the picture. It would be nice to be able to search it for a place or a first name as well as a surname but that's not possible, so for a common name you may have to look through a lot of entries. Search the Times of India births, marriages and deaths for yourself.

I looked for my great grandfather, Luke Golding, but he’s not listed so that suggests that although he lived there as a young boy, he wasn’t born in India.


Our latest volume, Coldingham Monumental Inscriptions is now available.

Read our Kith & Kin column every week in the Border Telegraph and Peeblesshire News newspapers.

Another Isle of Man Collection Added to Family Search

I've just discovered a family member in a new collection indexed by Family Search.

They now have 4 sets of vital records for the Isle of Man though there's a warning for the first 3 collections that only a few localities are included and the time period varies by locality.

• Isle of Man Births and Baptisms, 1821-1911
• Isle of Man Marriages, 1849–1911
• Isle of Man Deaths and Burials, 1844-1911
• Isle of Man, Parish Registers, 1598-1950, containing baptisms, marriages, and deaths.

All in all, there's over 300,000 records included, and that must be good.


There's also a full list of all 891 of the Family Search collections.

The family member I found was Hamlet Lowe who married Catharine Ware at Braddan, Isle of Man, on 08 Jan 1788, though, of course, I still need to check that he is the correct one. I wonder where she was born, as there's no mention of her birth in the Isle of Man.

Petition to Release Historic English and Welsh Birth, Marriage, and Death Certificates for Viewing Online

Most of us in the UK have family members or ancestors who were born, got married, or died in England or Wales.

Unlike Scottish certificates, which can be viewed online at Scotland's People, only the indexes to English and Welsh births, marriages, and deaths can be viewed online.

To view the details of births, marriages and deaths registered in England and Wales since 1837, one is forced to buy certified copies of the entries from the General Register Office at £9.25 each. There's no reason why at least the older certificates could not be transferred to The National Archives, scanned and made available for viewing online on payment of a modest fee.

We don't need expensive legally certified copies; especially as we may need to see the details of many to help us decide which is the correct one.

If you're a UK citizen and / or a UK resident, there's an e-petition to Release historic Birth, Marriage, and Death certificates for viewing online - please have a look and if you agree, sign the petition.
It needs at least 100,000 signatures to be eligible for debate in the House of Commons.

There's a long way to go, at the time of writing there were only 222 signatures.

A Black Sheep in the Family ?

(With thanks to Chris Paton's blog Edinburgh born WDYTYA man's Nazi grandfather and The Herald, Scotland.)

Reported in the Herald, Martin Davidson, the BBC’s commissioning editor for history, which includes a favourite genealogy programme Who Do You Think You Are?, discovered that his German grandfather, Bruno Langbehn, had been one of the first members of the Nazi party, a high-ranking SS officer, and colleague of the architects of the Holocaust.

That's a good pretext for asking genealogists whether we're scared to research our family history deeply in case we unearth something we don't like, whether it's ancestors who did something bad, held ideas that we find repugnant, failed
in business, deserted the family.

Should we be scared ?

Generally, we can't be held responsible for what our ancestors thought or did, but perhaps we are responsible for what our children do.
If genealogy or family history consisted only of creating family tree charts and getting back as many generations as possible, I doubt there would be much of a following; and I think it's finding out more about our ancestors and the times in which they lived that makes family history so interesting.

That's why Borders Family History Society has always been keen on researching social history as well as transcribing monumental inscriptions and publishing.
Past publications have included foreign births, marriages, deaths reported in local newspapers, Days of Our Youth - Memories of Melrose, Dunse Barony Records (transcription of Court Records), Full of Egotism, the Diary of Rev John Hastie, Edrom, Jedburgh Parish Poor Law Records (1852-1874), Jedburgh Parish Poor Law Records (1875-1893), Kelso Poor Law and Ragged School Records, Melrose War Memorial, The Kirk Yetholm Gypsies.

We're working on other publications, Criminal Records, Lunatic Records, Melrose Parish Poor Law Records, Police Records too.

However many of these show our ancestors in a very poor light.

Recently, I helped a friend research a lady on her family tree who had been committed to a lunatic asylum for striking pictures in her house with a walking stick, however, she wonders whether that lady's descendants fear people knowing that their ancestor had mental health problems.

Another record was about a man who had suicidal tendencies, deeply depressed because he was ashamed of deeds done when he was younger. I shied away from mentioning the nature of his deeds and identifying him other than by his forename in my article for the Border Telegraph because it is a family newspaper - I would not want his descendants, some of whom might be school children, bullied, ostracised, traumatised because of what their ancestor did.

However, was that the correct decision ?

Is it worse to have an ancestor that was transported to Australia for stealing a purse, than to have one that was jailed for poaching or assault ?

Lastly, there are also a lot of websites that list people with criminal or lunatic pasts, for example, Black Sheep Ancestors and London Lives 1690-1820. Should such sites be allowed ?

I would be interested in your comments.

If you have any comments, please let me know by clicking the 'comments' link below.