Author Topic: Waddell Families in Shotts  (Read 8281 times)

Offline Forfarian

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Re: Waddell Families in Shotts
« Reply #18 on: Friday 25 March 22 09:34 GMT (UK) »
Do you have a big wall chart with all the branches that are known listed?
No.

The late Gavin Waddell's book, A History of the Waddells of Scotland, devotes a chapter to the various Waddell families in Shotts, but even he was unable to find or even suggest any links between them.

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I downloaded all the WADDELLS, with all the variant spellings from 1700-1800 from Scotlands People (just the search results, not the images) and put them into a spreadsheet. I didn't do all 96 pages of results, just those from Lanark, West Lothian and a few other parishes. I am hoping to put them in some kind of order that might help find some trees.
You're not the first to do that :)

It will be very interesting to see if you come to any different conclusions from others who have done the same sort of thing.

The critically important thing to remember is that not all baptism and marriage records have survived, so we can't exclude the possibility that the baptism of Christian Bryce's husband is one of the missing ones.

Also, for instance, The first recorded child of James Waddell and Christian Bryce was baptised in 1765, but there is no record of their marriage, so we can't know whether the five recorded children are the whole family, or just the five youngest of a larger family, and this has obvious implications for the date of the marriage, the dates of birth of James and Christian, and possible names of parents. Nor can we be certain that any hypothetical older children were born in Shotts rather than in some other parish.

See the attached screenshot for details of how defective the Shotts parish register is.

Yes, Swinstie is very likely.
Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.

Offline MelW66

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Re: Waddell Families in Shotts
« Reply #19 on: Friday 25 March 22 23:41 GMT (UK) »
So, the answer is... I may never know. How disappointing. It's a shame that the records didn't survive, and those that did were so poorly recorded. Still, it has been an interesting rabbit hole to go down.

Have others posted their results of searching for Waddells anywhere?

Do you know where I can get hold of a copy of Gavin Waddell's book? It doesn't seem to be available for purchase anywhere, or in a library outside of the UK.

Thanks for your knowledgeable reply. I appreciate fnding out what there is, or is not, to find out about my ancestors.

Offline Forfarian

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Re: Waddell Families in Shotts
« Reply #20 on: Saturday 26 March 22 09:34 GMT (UK) »
So, the answer is... I may never know. How disappointing. It's a shame that the records didn't survive, and those that did were so poorly recorded. Still, it has been an interesting rabbit hole to go down.
I'm afraid so. The 18th century BMD records in Shotts are particularly poor. But something else might turn up - estate papers, for instance.

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Have others posted their results of searching for Waddells anywhere?
If they have, I am not aware of them.

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Do you know where I can get hold of a copy of Gavin Waddell's book? It doesn't seem to be available for purchase anywhere, or in a library outside of the UK.
It was never for sale in bookshops. Gavin had it published privately and gave away copies to people he knew would be interested, or who had contributed to it. As far as I know, he had none left by the time of his death.

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Thanks for your knowledgeable reply. I appreciate fnding out what there is, or is not, to find out about my ancestors.
Do keep looking - you never know what might turn up.
Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.