Scotland’s People - Reference 🤔

[stuartroxy]

Hi folks,

I’m searching some rellies and was looking up SP. I got the following results for EXACTLY the same name with the same reference for 2 different years.

Are they the same person, or different people?

FWIW, I was thinking that it’s the same person with a birthday in late December, so there is another name (born in early January) on the same page.

[RJ_Paton]

It's extremely unlikely that two entries with the same Reference Number refer to different people.
Is there any reference to an RCE ? possibly a later update from the Procurator Fiscal led to the 2nd entry or possibly a Clerical correction made after the initial recording.

FWIW, I was thinking that it’s the same person with a birthday in late December, so there is another name (born in early January) on the same page.

Very unlikely - even though this is from the index pages the reference system is supposed to record each indiviual with a unique reference number

[stuartroxy]

Hi there RJ,

No RCE as far as I’m aware - they’re from 1975/6, so I’ve no access to the certificate.  Are you suggesting that the every year District represented by ‘740’ starts on page 1?  Such that on page 396 in 1975 and on page 396 in 1976 there are 2 births with the same name - that’s extraordinary!

Or, with the RCE, it was updated because the date was wrong on one of them?

Roxy

[softly softly]

I strongly feel they are the same registration  for the same lady, one may be a typing error.

SS

[stuartroxy]

SS,

That was my first thought.

Roxy

[Forfarian]

Are you suggesting that the every year District represented by ‘740’ starts on page 1?  Such that on page 396 in 1975 and on page 396 in 1976 there are 2 births with the same name - that’s extraordinary!

Unlike in England where the reference is to a page in the register, in Scotland every event gets a unique number.

In the case of births and deaths before about 1960/1970 (I forget exactly when) there were 3 certificates on each page of the register. After that every certificate is a whole page on its own.

In any given year and district, certificates are numbered in sequence starting with No 1. The numbers are assigned by the Registrar at the time of creating the record.

So this looks as if the 396th birth registered in District No 740* in 1975 is the same as the 396th birth registered in District No 740 in 1976. That looks like either coincidence (i.e. they genuinely do just happen to be the same) or some sort of clerical error.

I favoured the coincidence theory, until I found another certificate in 1975 with the identical number, which should be impossible, therefore it has to be a clerical error of some sort.

The only way to be certain is to take a look at both certificates, which can be done in house in a Scotland's People Centre.

*No 740 in 1975 was one of the numbers allocated to Edinburgh George Square, which also had No 738. I have no idea what happened to No 739!

[stuartroxy]

Hi Forfarian,

Thanks!

Roxy

[GR2]

Perhaps it might be worth contacting them to ask if this is due to a clerical error. They might look and let you know.

[stuartroxy]

Good idea!

Thanks!