SCT-KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE-L Archives

Archiver > SCT-KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE > 2004-01 > 1074724244


From: "Erica Johnson" <>
Subject: Re: [SCT-KKD] Parton Parish Registers and Gaps in all Parish Registers
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 22:33:42 -0000
References: <81.36638db.2d3d26a7@aol.com> <016801c3debb$bc946bc0$4b23883e@ejohnson> <01c001c3df2f$3a06ffa0$1a0931d2@qld.optushome.com.au> <01cd01c3df34$eea21940$7ec3a4cb@IBM>


Hi all,

Not wanting to be pernickety but the Tax was 6d and was not repealed until 1813.

It was an awful lot of money for a family. The Minister would still marry and baptised people, it just wouldn't be written in the register.

Not only that you have to understand how the Registers were compiled.

Marriages and Baptisms took place any day of the week in peoples own homes, or in a nearby big house while the minister was visiting. They rarely took place in Church.

The minister than saw his Kirk Session Clerk the following Sunday and told him verbally who he had baptised and married. Sometime during the following week the Session Clerk wrote up the entries in the Registers. So human error plays a big part, baptisms and marriages were forgotten, you actually see many entries with gaps which the Session Clerk obviously intended going back to to fill in the detail but never got round to it.

I hope this explains why there are often a lot of gaps.

Erica





----- Original Message -----
From: Janet <>
To: <>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:07 AM
Subject: Re: [SCT-KKD] Parton Parish Registers


>
>
> There was an Act of Parliament (which effected the whole of Scotland)
> effective 1st October 1783 imposing a tax of 3 pence on each birth or
> baptism, each marriage and each burial that was recorded. This was
> repealed in 1794. At that stage some families approached their Church
> with their Family Bible, and asked that the family information then be
> recorded in the Church Records. So if your family were labourers or
> gardeners who could not afford to pay this tax, any births, deaths or
> marriages for your family would not have been recorded at this time.
>
> I have read many LDS OPR Films and there is a notation in most of them,
> explaining the absence of records during this period of time.
>
> Janet
> Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia
>
> Researching: GORDON / GRIER / GRIERSON / HANNAH / HENDERSON / CAMPBELL
> / McILWRAITH / McNAE / ROXBURGH / WHANNELL
>
>

This thread: