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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Midlothian => Topic started by: ainslie on Tuesday 18 August 09 12:25 BST (UK)
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Can anyone please tell a Sassenach whether there was a kirk (Presbyterian) in Dundas Street in 1825, and if so, is it still there?. A relative is supposed to have been married there.
A
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Dundas Street runs from Great King Street to Queen Street. There is no kirk on the street and none was marked on the 1847 map. I certainly can't recall any building which might once have been a kirk.
The closest one I know is St Stephen's at the bottom of St Vincent Street. There was an episcopal chapel close by.
Nell
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Thank you, Nell.
The wedding in question may be one of those celebrated twice - once in Fife at the groom's kirk - he was a minister -and again in Edinburgh.
A
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Hi A,
It might also be the case that the couple were married at an address in Dundas Street, rather than there being any church service. This appears from my own family to have been very common in Scotland, where couples tended to be married at the bride's residence.
I have loads of presbyterian ancestors/relations who were married by ministers at private addresses. Rarely, someone was married in the manse and it seems that only relatively recently that people started getting married in the church itself.
It might depend on the 'status' of the couple though - mine were all farm servants and miners!
Best wishes
Rockford
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As Little Nell says, Dundas Street ran north between Queen Street and Great King Street. To its first crossing, at Heriot Row and Abercromby Place, it ran between private gardens which have never been built on. Between there and Gt King St there are two unbroken blocks of tenements on each side of Dundas St, built c1800-1820, all to the same general design and more or less unaltered today. None of these four blocks has anything that looks in any way like a church.
If you come north to explore, or look at modern street plans, you might see that Dundas Street continues north of Great King Street, and that there are possible church sites there. Don't be misled! This extended part of the street was called Pitt Street until around 1950.
So you can confine your search to the part south of Gt King Street.
Do you have the house number in Dundas St? I could nip out and have a look; I live nearby.
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Thanks to all responders. Having invested in some of Scotland's People, it becomes more of a puzzle. The register in Fife (where the groom was minister) records that the banns were duly published, and the couple were married in Edinburgh on 2nd February [1825]. The Edinburgh parish register entry records their marriage as having been on 23 January "3 pro, no objection". I take this to mean 3 proclamations of banns.
The bride was shown in the Kilrenny register as residing in Edinburgh.
No number in Dundas Street is shown in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, where I first found the marriage, or in either register entry.
In the light of what you kind people have said, I conclude that the marriage was at the bride's residence, and not the kirk.
A
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Do you know what denomination the service was? I have seen United Free Church weddings apparently conducted at the home of the minister.
Hibee
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Hibee
The groom was a minster of the Church of Scotland - Presbyterian, and his bride was a daughter of his (deceased) predecessor at Kilrenny, Fife.
A
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Decades later ... and no great contribution. I have a newspaper report of a marriage -
newspaper Edinburgh Evening News issue 19 Mar 1928
MARRIAGE.
FREE - DICKSON. - At the Dundas Rooms, on 17th March, by the Rev. R. W. Leekie, Davidson's Mains, VINCENT F. FREE, son of Mr and Mrs FREDERICK FREE, 19 The Village, Cramond, to ANNIE, oldest daughter of the late ROBERT DICKSON, Milwaukee, U.S.A., and Mrs Dickson, 81, Morrison Street, Edinburgh
So "Dundas Rooms" looks like a venue. I do not think Dundas Castle would be possible (unlike nowadays), nor Dundas House (a bank at this time). So I'm guessing an establishment (like a supper rooms) in Dundas Street, which seems to tally with earlier messages.
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Thanks to all responders. Having invested in some of Scotland's People, it becomes more of a puzzle. The register in Fife (where the groom was minister) records that the banns were duly published, and the couple were married in Edinburgh on 2nd February [1825]. The Edinburgh parish register entry records their marriage as having been on 23 January "3 pro, no objection". I take this to mean 3 proclamations of banns.
The bride was shown in the Kilrenny register as residing in Edinburgh.
No number in Dundas Street is shown in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, where I first found the marriage, or in either register entry.
In the light of what you kind people have said, I conclude that the marriage was at the bride's residence, and not the kirk.
I'm a bit late in responding to this but there is no reason to be puzzled.
The reason for two records of a marriage is that the kirk recorded the proclamations of banns, rather than the actual wedding ceremony. It does not mean that the couple were married twice.
If the bride and groom lived in different parishes the banns had to be proclaimed in both parishes, and you get two records of the banns having been proclaimed. Sometimes one of these will include the date and place of the wedding ceremony, but not always.
And you are quite right, the wedding was not held in the kirk. This was absolutely the norm until kirk weddings began to become fashionable towards the end of the 19th century. The usual place was the bride's parents' home, or, if she had no parents or was married a long way from home, either in the manse or her employer's house. This one, however, looks like an early example of a wedding in hotel or restaurant premises.
The United Free Kirk is irrelevant as the date this marriage was in 1825. The Free Kirk only came into existence in 1843, and the United Free Kirk was the result of an amalgamation of most of the Free Kirk with the United Presbyterian Kirk in 1900.
For the record, the attached is from the indexes to pre-1855 banns and marriage at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk.
This https://archive.org/details/fastiecclesiaesc05scot/page/214/mode/1up?view=theater might also be of interest.
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Thanks to all responders. Having invested in some of Scotland's People, it becomes more of a puzzle. The register in Fife (where the groom was minister) records that the banns were duly published, and the couple were married in Edinburgh on 2nd February [1825]. The Edinburgh parish register entry records their marriage as having been on 23 January "3 pro, no objection". I take this to mean 3 proclamations of banns.
The bride was shown in the Kilrenny register as residing in Edinburgh.
No number in Dundas Street is shown in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, where I first found the marriage, or in either register entry.
In the light of what you kind people have said, I conclude that the marriage was at the bride's residence, and not the kirk.
A
I'm interested to read about your links to these old Kilrenny ministers. I was brought up in the former fishing village of Cellardyke, the main centre of population in Kilrenny parish, and I have been researching our local history since the early 1980s. I wrote a book about the village which came out in 1986, and of course I have often come across the Revs. Forrester and Brown in my researches.
James Forrester was minister of Anstruther Wester for 30 years before transferring to Kilrenny for a further 10 years. The Kilrenny OPR for 1808 records that "The Revd. James Forrester, Minr. of this parish, after Two years debility of body and mind, died at his house in Gilmour place, Edinr., on the 5th Decr. 1808, in the 63rd year of his Age, and 40th of his Ministry."
That street is now spelt Gilmore Place. I lived there for three years as a student in the 1960s.
The Rev. James Brown was married in 1821 at Kilrenny to Ann Rankine, daughter of Captain William Rankine, the tenant of Barnsmuir, near Kilrenny. She was very popular with the local people, so much so that several baby girls were called after her, including my 2 x great-grandmother Ann Rankine Gellatly. Unfortunately Ann Rankine or Brown died in 1823 after only two years of marriage. Two years later again the Rev. Brown married Mary Forrester. Mr. Brown died in 1834 aged 45. He and his 1st wife Ann Rankine are buried in an enclosure by the north wall of Kilrenny churchyard with a marble tablet which is very informative about the family. One descendant lived in Los Angeles. Strangely enough there is no mention of Mary Forrester on the tablet and I don't know when and where she died.
Capt. Rankine was succeeded as tenant of Barnsmuir by George Fortune, who married a daughter of the Rev. Brown and Ann Rankine. There is some dispute about which daughter he married. Another of my 2 x great-grandmothers, Marjorie Myles from Crail, would become cook and housekeeper at Barnsmuir!
Harry
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https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/116281520/james-brown
Harry
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The ninth entry down from the top is for the death of the Rev. James Forrester. As the burial ground isn't mentioned by name I assume it's St. Cuthbert's churchyard at the west end of Princes St./bottom of Lothian Road.
Harry