1870's Geography - Bridgeton, Parkhead

[cam12]

Hello from Canada.
I am doing family research (surname Martin) who came from Northern Ireland to Glasgow area around 1869.  Through Scotland's People (SP) and/or Ancestry I have the following address descriptions on various records. On a map they look like very different neighbourhoods ... but some documents seem to use the place descriptions interchangeably (?).

The family: Patrick Martin & wife Margaret (Smith) Martin had 4 daughters born in Ireland (Mary b: 1858; Margaret JR b: 1864; Susan b: 1866; Ann b: 1868). They then moved to Scotland. The family appears in the following records in Scotland, chronologically:


Birth Registration - Alexander Martin b: 9 May 1870. The actual record says "Parkhead", but the summaries of both SP & Ancestry say "Bridgeton".

Scotland 1871 Census - says family address was "#414 Great E. Road".

Birth Registration - Patrick Martin b: 17 January 1872. The actual record says "#44 West Muir Street, Glasgow", but summaries say "High Church".

Birth Registration - Francis Martin b: 13 June 1874. The actual record says "Chappell Terrace, Parkhead, Glasgow".

Death Registration of the first-born child, Mary Martin: died 6 January 1876 "#17 Brown's Lane, Great Eastern Road, Glasgow".

These descriptions make it sound like the family moved alot in a short period of time, although the Great Eastern Road appears in both the 1871 Census, and the Death Registration in 1876.

Is it considered to be in Bridgeton? or Parkhead?

The reason that I especially want to understand the geographic descriptions is that I am missing a son - Peter Martin - potentially born in 1873. He married a great-great Aunt of mine in Ireland, 5 December 1900, but then returned to work in Greenock (where he lived prior to the wedding) ... and family oral history says that Peter never returned to the marriage. This is substantiated by the Ireland 1901 and 1911 Census in which Peter is absent.

In the Scotland 1901 Census I have a Peter Martin, boarding in Greenock, correct age, marital status, occupation ("machinest" on Marriage Record; "Machine Worker in Shipyard" in the Census) who said that he was born specifically in "Bridgeton".

I suspect this is the "absent" great-great Uncle.

Any insights into these different geographies, and how they tie into the "Bridgeton" would be appreciated!

Regards from Canada
Cam12

[Forfarian]

Birth Registration - Alexander Martin b: 9 May 1870. The actual record says "Parkhead", but the summaries of both SP & Ancestry say "Bridgeton".
Birth Registration - Patrick Martin b: 17 January 1872. The actual record says "#44 West Muir Street, Glasgow", but summaries say "High Church".

I don't know Glasgow well enough to answer your question in detail, but it might be useful to say something about the registration process.

Registration was done on the basis of formally defined districts. In rural areas these originally corresponded to parishes, but the cities were subdivided. Bridgeton and High Church were two of the subdivisions of the city of Glasgow. Again, I don't know in detail which streets were in which Registration District (RD), but I do know that the districts were reviewed from time to time so that one street can be in one RD at one time and in a different RD at a later time, or a long street may span more than one RD.

What you describe as 'summaries' on SP are not summaries, but the indexes to the records.

To find a specific record, you need to know the name of the RD, the year of registration (usually the same year as the event itself but events occurring in the last week of December are often registered in the following year), the RD number (in the east of Glasgow usually 644 followed by a subdistrict number) and the individual entry number.

When you see the original record, you get the exact place where the event occurred, which mostly doesn't include the RD name, but often does include an informal neighbourhood name, such as Parkhead.

The indexes on FamilySearch can be very useful for finding the name of the RD of a birth from 1855 to 1874, because unlike the indexes at SP they include the names of the parents of the child. I imagine that the indexes on other commercial web sites (Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast etc etc) mirror this information as well as mirroring other parts of the SP index, but I have never needed to look at any of those for this information.

Hope this helps.

[Skoosh]

The Great Eastern Road was formerly that part of the Gallowgate westwards from Parkhead X to Fielden Street, Camlachie.

Bests,
Skoosh.

[GR2]

The National Library of Scotland has a large number of historical town plans of Glasgow. The site is free to use. This is the link to the Glasgow maps:

https://maps.nls.uk/towns/glasgow.html

[RJ_Paton]

Bridgeton was a district in its own right - it was also at one time the Title used by the Registration District for Bridgeton and adjoining areas - Parkhead was an area within the Bridgeton registration District.

High Church was the official Title of the registration District formed by the area around Glasgow cathedral and some areas to the east of that.

Great eastern Road was split into 3 sections
part, as described by Skoosh, became the Gallowgate, part became Camlachie Street and the final section became Tollcross Road

[cam12]

Thanks to all of you for your comments - they have been very helpful.

Understanding the "Registration District" ... where the Great Eastern Road was ... access to the maps ... and that Parkhead was an area WITHIN the Bridgeton Registration District (I suspected that - so great to have confirmation!!).

I must confess that I have found Scotland's People to be a bit frustrating to work with when it comes to Birth Registrations in particular.  The fact that it appears that you can not apply the parent's names as filters makes it quite difficult, especially if you don't know WHERE a birth took place ... and may even be guessing about names and dates, or don't really know how many children a couple had. Obviously SP do have the parent's information ... they have scanned copies of the actual Birth Registrations on which the parent's names appear. But I guess that they have chosen to design their system so that the parent's names are not part of the user's selection process when looking for Birth records (unlike i.e. Roots Ireland).

I have used Family Search and Ancestry to try and narrow things down ... but I obviously haven't appreciated the significance of the Registration Districts enough, and how to use that geographic information from Family Search and Ancestry and apply it when looking at Scotland's People info.

The one thing that I DO appreciate about Scotland's Birth Registration documents - which I believe is somewhat unique - is that you provide the date and place of the parent's marriage.  I have never seen that when searching Ireland, England, Australia, New Zealand, Canadian or U.S. Birth Registrations.

If it were not for this unique feature ... I would never have known that this Martin family actually originally came from Ireland! All oral family history said that they were exclusively from Scotland.

BTW - is there a web site that you can recommend that shows the geographic names, and corresponding coding numbers for the Registration Districts, and Sub-Districts in and around the Glasgow area ... that would align with what Scotland's People shows when you put in an enquiry?

Thanks again for all of you help!
Cam12

[manukarik]

Not sure if this is what you were looking for:

https://www.talkingscot.com/rds/city-rds-glas.htm

Looked at another site and it didn't have the relevant districts on it!

[Forfarian]

I must confess that I have found Scotland's People to be a bit frustrating to work with when it comes to Birth Registrations in particular.  The fact that it appears that you can not apply the parent's names as filters makes it quite difficult, especially if you don't know WHERE a birth took place ... and may even be guessing about names and dates, or don't really know how many children a couple had. Obviously SP do have the parent's information ... they have scanned copies of the actual Birth Registrations on which the parent's names appear. But I guess that they have chosen to design their system so that the parent's names are not part of the user's selection process when looking for Birth records (unlike i.e. Roots Ireland).

The index on SP is the index as it has existed since 1855. The maiden name of the mother forms part of the index from 1929 onwards, but of course these records are not yet available online because they are less than 100 years old.

SP is currently adding the mother's maiden surname to the deaths indexes, but there is still some way to go with this. Perhaps, once this alteration to the deaths indexes is completed, they may then start to add the mother's maiden surname to the earlier birth indexes.

At least the SP index includes middle names, unlike the index at https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/ which includes only the first given name.

But compared with just a few years ago, it's wonderful how much more information is now available, even though not all of it is as perfect as one might wish. Until about two decades ago the only ways to get a Scottish certificate at all were either to go to New Register House in person, or to order a certificate to be sent by post, or to pay a professional searcher.

[MonicaL]

To help you get your bearings 

The River Clyde ran along the botton line (left to right) of Anderston, Clyde, Calton and Bridgeton.