Help needed to read this please - COMPLETED WITH THANKS TO ALL

[JAP]

Maggie, I know only too well how very easy it is to spend heaps more than one intends on SP!
Perhaps (on the Dumfriesshire board as you suggest - with a link to this thread) if - once your cold has cleared up - you post all you know about your ancestor Christopher and your links to him (including the main points of the Will you've just downloaded?), someone might have some ideas which will help with your puzzle.  I tend to be attracted to deciphering (including old handwriting) threads and I like puzzles so will certainly be looking for this one.  If I don't post on any such new thread, it won't mean that I haven't tried - it will be because I've tried but believe that I don't have anything useful to contribute.    Best of luck!

Gatacre,  The mother's maiden name is not in the online IGI for Christopher NICHOLSON, 1781, Mouswald for one reason and one reason only - because this is one of those infuriating online IGI batches where only the girls were entered so Christopher isn't there at all.  If the boys had also been included in the online IGI for Mouswald, his mother's name (her full name - given name & maiden surname) would have been shown simply because it was recorded in the Mouswald OPR.
John NICHOLSON, 1787, also doesn't show in the online Torthorwald IGI.  Again because it too is a girls-only batch.  But, IF the boys had also been shown in the online IGI, the mother's name wouldn't be there - simply because the mother was not recorded at all (not even her given name) in the Torthorwald OPR.
But you are, of course, entirely right about the persistence of women's maiden names in Scotland (luckily for genealogists) - often women who are obviously married (though relationships weren't shown in 1841) are recorded only by maiden name in the 1841 census, and quite often in later censuses women seem to revert to their maiden name after death of a husband ...
Incidentally, Roucan was identified on the first page of this thread (by moi) and subsequently confirmed; there's really no remaining doubt 

Regards to all,

JAP

[Maggie.]

Hi JAP and Gatacre,

Thank you again for your interest.  Having spent most of yesterday on the IGI looking for Nicholsons, I must next try to make some sort of sense of what I have found!!  However, I am biding my time for now whilst I wait for a cousin to get back to me.  She did the original reseach on this family many many years ago, before the advent of the internet made it possible to find out such a lot from the comfort of home.  She spend many an hour in Dumfries library pouring through the parish records, and visiting graveyards.  This was some time before I became interested in family research and at the moment all I have from her is a pedigree tree, which she now tells me is quite possibly incorrect.  She has promised me she will consult her files and notes and get back to me, but until then I will hold my fire.

When I have sorted out what info. I have I will certainly post on the Dumfries board. 

Thank you for the explanation of the inner workings of the IGI in Scotland and the lack of info. on male children in Mousewald and Totherwald, and thanks to all who have help to sort out the illegible words in those parish records 

Regards,
Maggie

[JAP]

Dear Maggie,

It's going to be real fun if there are some clues to be found in your puzzles 

It really is unexpected, isn't it, to find the lack of boys in certain IGI batches.  I must say that I was surprised when I found this quirk - but well worth knowing it!!

Anyway, we shall see what you shall see, eh! And hope to be able to help.

All the very very best,

JAP

[Gatacre]

We learn something new everydayand I was not aware of the 'girls only' names on the IGI or the missing boys names.  RootsChat is a wondeful source of information.

However the best of luck, Maggie, for your future searching.