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Archiver > SCT-FIFE > 2004-01 > 1074095611


From: "Lesley Robertson" <>
Subject: RE: [FIF] Records of teachers in Fife
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 16:53:31 +0100


>From: "Lorna and Stafford Baines" <>
>Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:58:55 -0000
>

>
>I wonder if by chance anyone knows if there are records of
>teachers.
>My gggg grandfather, William CLARK born in 1802 is a school teacher
>on all records, and his 5 children are born in Fife (Dysart, Freuchie,
>Leslie 3 of them), and then he died in Kirkcaldy. His own father was
>the Parish School Master - I think at Kirkmichael, Dumfries, as this is
>where all his children were born.
>Can anyone tell me if they know of such records for Fife.

I've just spent some time searching for teachers of a Berwickshire village.
The good news is that information can be found in the Kirk Session minutes
and the minutes of the local Presbytry, provided he was a parish
schoolmaster. There's several bits of bad news: survival of such records is
patchy; where they do survive they're in NAS and thus not on line (although
their catalogue is) and finding mention of schoolmasters being appointed
means searching through handwritten pages of blether and scandal. When I
found it, the info usually included previous job and what subjects they
could teach. More bad news is that there were other schools, not covered by
the Kirk, and their records are even harder to find. For example, the
Statistical Account says that the parish I'm running a 1-place study on had
a second, non-parish school, but I can find no trace of it anywhere else.
If you can't get to Edinburgh, you may need to get a researcher to look for
you.

NAS is here http://www.nas.gov.uk/ I found that I got best results by only
using "any text" and ignoring all the other search fields.
The statistical Accounts are here
http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/stat-acc-scot/stat-acc-scot.asp Sometimes
you find that the schoolmaster wrote the thing if the Minsiter didn't want
to. You don't have to register unless you want to use their complicated text
search. if you know the parish, just select the county and then parish.
Lesley Robertson
.

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