Have I run out of options?

[andycand]

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

[didactylos]

Thanks to al who have contributed, feeling I can move forward now on this.

Roger

[Forfarian]

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.

[Annette7]

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

[andycand]

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

[Forfarian]

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.

[JMStrachan]

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.

[alpinecottage]

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.

[kris47]

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