SCT-WIGTOWNSHIRE-L Archives

From: Bruce McDowall <>
Subject: Re: [WIG LIST] McKelvie's
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 18:06:49 +1100

Hi Neil,

I've been following the correspondence re your McKELVIE & GOLDIE interest.
I don't have any connection, but tend to read all postings to the Wig list.
One thing I've picked up is a presumed general illiteracy. Two examples:

"Spelling in old parish records and census records can be highly variable!
Some of the transcribers and
Registrars may have had doubtful qualifications for their work. Also, those
recorded who were illiterate could hardly have had an opinion about
spelling!"

"The Irish spelling is "McKelvey" or "McKelvy"; however, the actual
spelling in any records was hardly something that an often illiterate or
semi-literate farm worker either knew or cared about."

Literacy and spelling of names are things I've contemplated for some time,
so I'd like to share some thoughts with the list. I'd also like to see any
confirming or conflicting arguments.

I started out assuming that farming folk in Wigtownshire back around 1800
would have had a low rate of literacy, but was surprised to find examples
of handwriting of some of my lot indicating that they wrote rather well. My
gg'grandfather born abt 1794 wrote particularly well, and so too did sons
born 1822 and 1826, (the only of his children whose writing I have seen).

A couple of years back, I attended a talk given by a Scottish ex-pat living
here in Melbourne, who is a history professor. His talk was on education in
Scotland, and he surprised not only me with the news that Scotland had a
relatively high literacy rate back then. He stated that the highest rates
were in rural areas and in the lowlands. Wigtownshire is both, so I guess
that sits well with a high literacy rate in the community. Perhaps the high
incidence of migration from Ireland to Wigtownshire counteracted this to
some degree.

It has often been stated on this list how spelling, (of names in
particular), was rather arbitrary prior to the latter half of the 19th
century. Most of the records that we genealogists refer to would have been
recorded by literate people, regardless of how literate were the people
whose affairs they were recording. The way I figure it, the spelling of
names of our ancestors was at the whim of the official, regardless of
whether our ancestors either cared about the spelling, or knew how to write
their own names.

Even today, officials insist on spelling my name as 'McDowell', yet I know
that it is 'McDowall' on my birth certificate, and that's the way my
father, grandfather, g'grandfather, and gg'grandfather all spelt it. I have
also experienced difficulty in wondering how to spell names of people I
have spoken to by telephone, but whose names I have not seen written down.
Keeping this in mind, I don't think literacy need correlate at all well
with an ability to spell other people's names.

Regards,
Bruce

This thread:

• Re: [WIG LIST] McKelvie's by Bruce McDowall <>