West Linton Churchyard

What, you might well ask, has Tweeddale Community Transport got to do with the Borders Family History Society ?  Well it's the reason that I've nearly finished transcribing the monumental inscriptions in West Linton Churchyard.  One of our regular jobs is to collect a number of the older residents of the parish and take them to their Tuesday Afternoon Club.  This involves a wait of around 1½ hours right beside West Linton Church.  It occurred to me that this would be an ideal opportunity to make start on West Linton MIs.  Almost 3 years on there are only about 15 stones left to complete.  The most intractable ones of course.  The Tuesday Afternoon Club doesn't meet in the summer but I hope I'll finish by the end of the year.

I've been helped a lot by West Linton and District History Association who surveyed the stones in the churchyard in 2003 as part of Historic Scotland's Carved Stone Decay project in 2003.

More about Witches

Our first talk of the current season was given by Mary Craig talking about the witch trials of the Scottish Borders.

A bit later I discovered that there was a Survey of Scottish Witchcraft and having downloaded the database that 42% were from Berwickshire, 31% from Peeblesshire, 20% from Roxburghshire, but only 7% from Selkirkshire.

There's a recent video Scottish Witchhunts from the National Library of Scotland in which Nicola Stratton talks about some of the many recent publications on witchcraft including modern reprints of Malleus Maleficarum which she likens to a Dummies Guide to Witchhunting and James VI's Daemonologie.

She makes some interesting insights and points out that to understand the witchhunts, we need to know about the social history of the period and the legal procedures by which witches could be prosecuted.

Alnwick Castle Archives and the Earls of Northumberland

Alnwick Castle Archives and the Earls of Northumberland
is the title of the talk at the annual general meeting of Friends of Berwick & District Museum and Archives.

Lord Joicey will give an update on Flodden and then the speaker is Chris Hunwick, Archivist at Alnwick Castle.

It takes place on Friday 23 March at 7.00 pm at Berwick Parish Centre, The Parade, Berwick-upon-Tweed, TD15 1DF, England. Map. It's next to Holy Trinity Church. Entrance is through the churchyard. The suggested car parking is in the car park next to the churchyard.

Everyone is welcome. Admission free.

Coldingham Monumental Inscriptions has been published. More information.

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