Next Talk at Melrose on 25 October - 'The pre-1855 Parish Registers of the Roman Catholic Church'

Our next talk is this Sunday, 25 October when Donna Maguire, archivist and records manager to the Bishops Conference of Scotland, is coming to speak to us.

The title of her talk is ‘The pre-1855 Parish Registers of the Roman Catholic Church'. The talk takes place at the Corn Exchange and Ormiston Institute, Market Square, Melrose, TD6 9PN. Map.

I’m eagerly looking forward to this talk. Donna is going to tell us about the Catholic registers for parishes that were founded before 1855, the six Scottish dioceses and the records of the Bishops Conference of Scotland and its agencies.

I warmly invite you to attend the talk whether you are a member or not.

Doors open at 2pm; the talk begins at 2.30pm.

Knowing how to find Catholic records is vital in family history, even if you think you have no Catholics in your family, you may be wrong, as I was.

I suggest you come early to get a good seat.
We'll have a range of family history publications available to buy, and there’ll be light refreshments (donation expected) available after the talk.
If you have a problem with your family history, please discuss it with one of our volunteers.

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.

Contrast and Compare

They say that comparisons are odious. However a holiday in eastern England included visits to two local record offices which triggered some thoughts on the differences between them - and the Heritage Hub - and between English and Scottish records.

First up was the Bedford Record Office housed in a late 20^th century building in need of a bit of TLC. No formalities required when you sign in and they’re happy for you to use your camera provided you sign a simple copyright declaration. One of the differences between Scotland and England is that Parish Registers and all the other contents of the Parish Chest are deposited in the local record office. Bedfordshire parish records were transcribed by the county archivist many years ago and they are justifiably proud of the quality of the transcript. In fact they seemed quite offended when I asked to see the film of the original register.  The Bedfordshire FHS has produced a county wide index of these transcripts - very useful for finding those intinerant relatives we all have.

We moved onto the Norfolk Archive Centre, a very modern purpose built archive a couple of years older than the Heritage Hub in Hawick. Whilst you merely had to sign in to look at micro-form records, identification with an address was required before you would be given access to original documents.  Norfolk is part of the CARN (County Archive Research Network) so that the ID they issue can be used at other record offices. They also charge for the privilege if you want to use your camera. I didn’t have a good day as I wanted to look at poor law records from the early 19^th century prior to the Poor Law Act of 1834. The records of the Parish Overseer form part of the Parish Chest but nothing had survived for either of the parishes I was interested in. Digging around however I did find a whole series of militia lists in the private papers from Felbrigg Hall - I wonder if the Norfolk FHS knows about them?

Leaving aside the fact that we’re stuck with the records from the places where our ancestors lived, do I have a preference ? Not really, there are good and bad features both nationally and locally. For example, Scots parish records have all been transcribed and images are available on the internet. English parish records always include marriages as well as banns (intimations) and deaths and beginning with marriages in 1754 were kept in pre-printed registers.

The picture at the head of this blog comes from the Time & Tide Museum in Great Yarmouth. It’s located in an old herring smoke house and includes reference to the significant influence that Scots had on the herring fishery.

Eyemouth United Secession Church Parish Register Transcriptions 1841-61

Maxwell Ancestry have just published Eyemouth United Secession Church parish register transcriptions 1841-61 at £4.99 plus postage. This contains baptisms, and 3 marriages. If you have ancestors who lived in or were associated with Eyemouth, they might have worshipped at this church. 

The surnames indexed are: Aitchison; Alexander, Anderson, Blackhall, Brack, Brodie, Bryce, Bugless, Burgan, Burgon, Clark, Cockburn, Collons, Craig, Crawford, Deepie, Dickson, Dippie, Dodds, Dougal, Dudgeon, Eddington, Edgar, Fairbairn, Fernside, Ford, Forest, Fortune, Fourtun, Fraser, Gibson, Gillies, Girling, Gray, Grosert, Grozertt, Henderson, Jerdan, Jhonston, Johnston, Johnstone, Leith, Maltman, Millar, Nesbit, Nisbet, Paterson, Paxton, Pearson, Reid, Robertson, Sathem, Scott, Scugal, Sinton, Stott, Tait, Wait, Watt, White, Whyte, Windram, Young.

This booklet can be purchased directly from us via our Contacts page using the contact type ‘Order for Publications’.