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Messages - RJ_Paton

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1
Family History Beginners Board / Re: What does ‘OP’ stand for In RootsChat?
« on: Sunday 13 July 25 14:38 BST (UK)  »

Original Post is what I have always understood that OP is the abbreviation for.

It all depends on the context it can be used to refer either to the Original Post or the Poster, although Post is the more common use here on Rootschat.

2
Scotland / Re: Glasgow Burial Records?
« on: Sunday 29 June 25 11:56 BST (UK)  »
The Old Rose Garden Lair Records are held by Glasgow City Archives at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow
(around 1882 Glasgow Council, in widening Rutherglen Road gained control of the Burial ground and many of the deceased were re interred in the Southern Necropolis)

see https://newcleckitdominie.wordpress.com/2022/12/24/the-gorbals-burying-ground/  for more information on the Burial ground

3
The Common Room / Re: Adoption post-WW1
« on: Monday 23 June 25 13:35 BST (UK)  »
Were the children adopted by friends and family, or was there a ‘market’ (for want of a better word) for anonymous adoptions?
John

It is generally believed that the greater number of pre legislation adoptions were amongst the greater family group although I don't believe that there was any formal study done of this to substantiate or disprove this claim.
Several Charity group and church groups also existed and kept their own records of the transactions. Private adoptions also still existed and in some cases the actual sale of children happened.
It was partially to regulate these disparate  methods that the Adoption of Childrens Act was brought into existance with one of its aims being to provide better protection for the child concerned than had previously been the case. (The Scottish Act was basically a carbon copy of the Act for England & Wales with the appropriate geography changed) .
One side effect of the legislation was the power given to "the Authorities" to decide if the parent (generally the mother) was a fit person to have a child and was used for many years to separate single mothers from their babies

4
Unfortunately the paperwork that would have provided some of the answers, the Sudden Death Report, is long gone. Most police forces purged their records after several years and while the PF kept records for slightly longer they would not have survived until today.

A full sudden death report would contain
Full details of deceased and to many people’s surprise their parents.
Full details of what happened and the roles of the witnesses
List of witnesses

5
I feel rather foolish. I've had a look at the death certificate. The informant is James' father Thomas Graham. I thought maybe that the person identifying a dead body and the informant indicated on a death death certificate might not necessarily be one and the same. I think the tragic timeline is as follows; James' body was found at 8:40pm on Thursday the 31st of October and then taken to Falkirk Police Mortuary. The body was identified on the evening of Friday the 1st of November. The newspaper report was published on Saturday the 2nd of November. I am not sure when the actual death certificate was issued but the correction statement that accompanies it has two dates at the bottom of it - " Falkirk, 14th November 1895" followed by two names, and "Polmont, 25th November 1895" followed by the name of the registrar. Does this indicate that the death certificate may not have been not issued until between three and three-and-a-half weeks after death. Also, does it mean that it is was accepted that the person who identified the body would also be entered on the death certificate as informant?

Regards

Doddie

First question - Yes, if left for the PF to finalise and provide the details this would have happened.
2nd Question, No.   The informant is the person who reports the matter to the Registrar, whether its a relative or an official from the PF's office

6
I have seen a couple of Scottish death certificates involving sudden or unexplained deaths. In both cases the box for informant was completed along the lines of "Death recorded in accordance with report dated X, from John Doe, Procurator Fiscal." The records were signed by the Registrar. Not by a relative.

Where a death occurs that is reported to the Procurator Fiscal the family basically have two options regarding registering the death.
1. Visit their local Registrar and report the death with the details that they have available. If other information subsequently comes to light from the PF's enquiries then the information in the Register is corrected by means of an entry in the Register of Corrected Entries.
2. Do nothing and leave it with the PF - this results in the informant of the death being the PF and is usually recorded as quoted above.

7
The Common Room / Re: Definition of adulterer/adulteress
« on: Thursday 19 June 25 13:21 BST (UK)  »
Is there a formal definition that makes the distinction clear?

Reply #19 is from Greens Scots Law Encylopedia (1901) and gives the definition of Adultery as a crime (although by 1901 it was more in abeyance than enforced)

8
The Common Room / Re: Definition of adulterer/adulteress
« on: Thursday 19 June 25 13:19 BST (UK)  »
Just quoting myself to draw attention again to an unmarried woman being indicted for the capital crime adultery. The law here certainly treats and punishes her as an adulteress.

Sadly the newspaper article does not provide a definitive answer. On one hand referring to her by her maiden name is quite normal under Scots Law but trying her for Adultery suggests she was married as the law itself states that only a married person can commit adultery (see reply #19).
Her giving birth to a child from the relationship while pushing the "crime" into the Capital Punishment category also suggests that the authorities were perhaps using this as some form of show trial for some reason unknown to us today
There is also the concept of "Particeps Criminis" - Criminal Participant, (used more in Civil Law than in Criminal) which could make her equally liable with the birth of a child from the relationship, given the patriarchal & Misogynistic attitudes often found in Laws (and Lawmakers) of the period.

9
The Common Room / Re: Definition of adulterer/adulteress
« on: Thursday 19 June 25 10:17 BST (UK)  »
Is this necessarily an 'either/or'; might the perpetrator not commit both ?

Context matters.
Strictly speaking (by the definition of the crime) only a married person could commit adultery however social etiquette/beliefs/constraints etc. would almost certainly tar both parties with the same brush.

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