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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Topic started by: didactylos on Tuesday 26 March 13 12:24 GMT (UK)
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Ok on my paternal side I have got back pretty much complete records until I get to my 3rd GGrandfather John Neilson. I am used to dealing with the English records so I may betray an element of lack of knowledge here - or it may be I simply have hit a brick wall. I have located him and his wife Jane (Jean) nee Rankin (Rankine) in the 1841 Scottish census which gives me births for both of them in 1791 in Lanarkshire. I also have a 'bulk' baptism of the children in Bothwell in 1848 - children were born between 1808 and 1830.
I cannot find any record of their marriage - Scotland's People and LDS searches, nor of their baptisms. I have tried variants on the surnames and still nothing although there does come a point where when broaden the search criteria on Scotland's People I get lots of possibilites - but I also do not fancy spending a fortune on checking every one of them in the hope one might be right.
I cannot locate death records either......
So, 1791 does not seem to me to be too early that there are no Parish Records, - but I may be mistaken. Also the 'bulk' baptism seems odd to me - was there some possible reason for this at the time - is 1848 significant?
Its like after they got the kids baptised they vanished?
Any ideas, observations very welcome....
Roger ???
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OK further and messier. His wife was Jane Rankin (or variants of that name) I am fairly sure her death was between 1861 and 1871. Born in 1791.
What should I put into a death search for her? This is very confusing. (Scotland's People) I have just lost umpteen credits by getting it wrong....
:'(
Roger
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Hi didactylos, have you checked the Jane Rankin marrying Glasgow 1807 or the John Neilson, Glasgow 1806.
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Hi ,
You say born 1791 but the 1841 Census instructions were to round down any ages over 15 , so could have been aged 50 - 54(However ages were not always rounded down)
Have you found them in the 1851 or 1861 Census ?
It could be that the couple died before the start of official registration in 1855 :-\
ev
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Hi didactylos, have you checked the Jane Rankin marrying Glasgow 1807 or the John Neilson, Glasgow 1806.
Is that in Scotland's People?
Roger
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Hi ,
You say born 1791 but the 1841 Census instructions were to round down any ages over 15 , so could have been aged 50 - 54(However ages were not always rounded down)
Have you found them in the 1851 or 1861 Census ?
It could be that the couple died before the start of official registration in 1855 :-\
ev
I think I have just found John living with his son and family in 1881, 90....
Needs more investigating.
Roger
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Hi didactylos,
Have a look at this link, will save you credits/money on SP in the long run.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,562668.0.html
Tom
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The "bulk" baptism you refer to is not so much a bulk baptism as a bulk registration. The children would have been baptised shortly after birth, but their baptisms not entered in the register. It is quite common for this to happen. Sometimes at a later date, perhaps when a subsequent child was baptised, earlier baptisms were also registered in a block. It is very common to find this in the 1850s, just before statutory civil registration began.
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Yes, I've found bulk baptisms entered in the register in the late 1840s/early 1850s, just prior to official registration. From this I deduce that a lot of baptisms which took place earlier than that didn't make it into the register at the time.
Jane, Jean and Jeannie were interchangeable and I have ancestorscalled a different version in each census.
When searching for a married woman on ScotlandsPeople, put her maiden name in the other surname box. But it's also a good idea to make sure you select "variants" when putting in names or learn how to use wildcards, as spelling was all over the place before the late 1800s.
For births and marriages prior to 1855, try looking for them on FamilySearch first, then switching over the ScotlandsPeople when you've narrowed down the field.
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Hi
The OPRs on Scotlandspeople are the Parish Registers of the Church of Scotland but there were other denominations such as Catholic, Episcopal (the Anglican Church in Scotland) etc . As well as recording their own baptisms and marriages I believe the Church of Scotland were also supposed to record events in other churches, some did but it would appear that many didn't. I too have bulk baptsms in a different parish, the pages also have bulk baptisms for other families, in my case the family were not Church of Scotland but United Presbyterian, I have seen it suggested that prior to Civil Registration commencing some Parishes caught up with entries that were not in their Register.
It is possible that your family were not Church of Scotland unfortunately although the Catholic Registers are on scotlandspeople (in a different section) most other denominations are not online
Andy
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Thanks to al who have contributed, feeling I can move forward now on this.
Roger
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I have located him and his wife Jane (Jean) nee Rankin (Rankine) in the 1841 Scottish census which gives me births for both of them in 1791 in Lanarkshire.
I assume that you are looking at a transcription which has calculated a supposed date of birth by subtracting the age on the census from the census year.
The original census never gives a date of birth. It tells you how old the people claimed to be on the date of the census. Working out the date of birth from this gives a wrong answer more often than it gives a correct one.
Also, as ev says, adults' ages in 1841 were supposed to be rounded down to the nearest 5 years, so they could have said anything from 50 to 54. The census was taken on 7 June 1841, so someone who was recorded as aged 50 (assuming of course that they knew accurately how old they were, and that they told the truth) would have been born between 8 June 1786 and 7 June 1791. Therefore about nine out of ten of those recorded as aged 50 in the 1841 census were not born in 1791.
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I haven't come across the bulk baptism you refer to but I have found individual baptisms for their children at Bothwell, Lanarkshire on familysearch IGI:
William bp16/10/1808
James 1810
David bp.14/5/1818
Thomas bp.19/3/1821
Robert bp.9/7/1825
Agnes bp.26/9/1827
John bp.13/4/1829
Jean bp.28/11/1830
The 1851 census suggests John Neilson senior bc.1787/8 New Monkland, Lanarkshire and Jean (Jane) bc.1787/8 Shotts, Lanarkshire
Annette
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Hi Annette
The bulk baptisms referred to are not a case of multiple children being baptised on the same day but of baptisms taking place over several years all written on the same page, usually in family groups. I think what Roger is saying is that the baptisms you list are all on the same Parish Register page. I have seen a variety of reasons for this suggested at different times, one of which is that the baptisms are not Church of Scotland which is certainly the case within my family. One possibility is that the C of S noted them somewhere else and, sometime shortly before the commencement of Civil Registration, wrote them up in the Parish Register.
Andy
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I have found individual baptisms for their children at Bothwell, Lanarkshire on familysearch IGI:
Something that worries me slightly is that most of the baptisms are in the 'contributed' section of the IGI rather than the 'indexed' section. I assume that you have actually seen the original page, either at Scotland's People or on a microfilm. I wouldn't trust anything I found in the 'contributed' section - I would just use it as an aid to finding the original record.
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My "bulk baptism entry" was in Cruden Parish, Aberdeenshire. Each entry gives both a birth date and a baptism date for each child covering a spread of almost 20 years, and also gives the names of two witnesses to the fact that the baptism had taken place when stated. But they are all written up on the same two pages of the register and there is nothing in the register pages for the dates when the baptism are said to have taken place. I looked through the OPR for Cruden on microfiche some years ago, which is how I discovered it.
On FamilySearch (ex IGI, not contributed entries) the births/baptisms are indexed by the original baptism dates so if you went by that alone and didn't view the OPR images on ScotlandsPeople or a microfiche of the parish register, you wouldn't know that they'd been entered into the register up to 20 years after the event.
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I haven't come across the bulk baptism you refer to but I have found individual baptisms for their children at Bothwell, Lanarkshire on familysearch IGI:
William bp16/10/1808
James 1810
David bp.14/5/1818
Thomas bp.19/3/1821
Robert bp.9/7/1825
Agnes bp.26/9/1827
John bp.13/4/1829
Jean bp.28/11/1830
The 1851 census suggests John Neilson senior bc.1787/8 New Monkland, Lanarkshire and Jean (Jane) bc.1787/8 Shotts, Lanarkshire
Annette
I wonder what was happening between 1810 and 1818 - no children in that period. I wonder if John was married twice, the second time in 1806/7. Or if the first children were born to the same couple, but before marriage, it's possible that the church elders had something to say about that and there may be a record in the church minutes.
Ignore that bit - I had a logic and numeracy breakdown! But I still wonder why there was an 8yr gap with no children in an otherwise very fertile couple.
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Hi Roger, I was at Register House today so had a quick look for your death certs.
Jan 29 1865 Cleddens Farm, Western District of Cadder, Lanarkshire.
Jean Neilson married to John Neilson coalmine overseer age 77, Parents - James Rankin, Farmer deceased & Janet Dobbie. Informant J Neilson grandson.
29 Mar 1871 Mossbank, Springburn, Lanarkshire
John Neilson, Portioner, Widower of Jane Rankin age 83, Parents - William Neilson, weaver & Janer Dobbie, Informant - John Miller, son in law.
I didn't have time to check on both mothers being named Janet Dobbie!!!
Kris
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Hi Annette
The bulk baptisms referred to are not a case of multiple children being baptised on the same day but of baptisms taking place over several years all written on the same page, usually in family groups. I think what Roger is saying is that the baptisms you list are all on the same Parish Register page. I have seen a variety of reasons for this suggested at different times, one of which is that the baptisms are not Church of Scotland which is certainly the case within my family. One possibility is that the C of S noted them somewhere else and, sometime shortly before the commencement of Civil Registration, wrote them up in the Parish Register.
Andy
Well this is what I am looking at:
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Well this is what I am looking at:
Yes. That looks like a classic case of parents remedying earlier omissions. Notice that it only says they were born, whereas the usual thing is to give the date of baptism. But when you get bulk entries later, the parents can usually remember the birthdays, or may even have a record because they will have written them down in the family bible, but not the dates of baptism.
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I wonder what was happening between 1810 and 1818 - no children in that period. I wonder if John was married twice, the second time in 1806/7. Or if the first children were born to the same couple, but before marriage, it's possible that the church elders had something to say about that and there may be a record in the church minutes.
Ignore that bit - I had a logic and numeracy breakdown! But I still wonder why there was an 8yr gap with no children in an otherwise very fertile couple.
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Indeed my own conjecture is that maybe he was working elsewhere.... ended his days as a miner - maybe he had to locate elesehwere for a period to earn money?
Just a thought.
Or maybe they had a very long row....... :)
Roger
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I still wonder why there was an 8yr gap with no children in an otherwise very fertile couple.
Speculation: there were children, but they died so there was no point in having their baptisms recorded posthumously.
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Hi didactylos, have you checked the Jane Rankin marrying Glasgow 1807 or the John Neilson, Glasgow 1806.
Neither of those match up :(
Roger