|
It's a few months since we launched our Find the Father service, where we try to identify the father of children where he's not named on the child's birth or baptism entry. In that time, we've searched through literally thousands of baptisms, most of which noted both parents. However, many of these indicated in one way or another that the parents were not, in fact, married. Some of these are fairly obvious, but some are not so obvious, so we thought we'd list them.
Some phrases or markings in registers definitely show that the parents aren't married, while others may just be hinting as much. The following phrases/abbreviations are unambiguous:
Other phrases or markings are less clear - they may or may not indicate that the parents are unmarried:
One important and unusual characteristic of Scots law which distinguishes it from English law is the concept of legitimisation. A child born out of wedlock whose parents subsequently marry becomes legitimate provided that his or her parents were free to marry at the time of his or her birth. In the first twenty years of civil registration in Scotland, around 140,000 children were born with no father named on their birth certificates. Our initial research suggests that at least one in three of these fathers can be identified from various historical records. If you have an illegitimate Scottish ancestor in your family tree, why not try our no-win, no-fee Find the Father service to see if your ancestor is one of them?
7 Comments
Historically, illegitimacy – being born outwith marriage – often carried a great social stigma. It was considered something to be ashamed of – as if somehow the child was responsible for the actions of his or her parents. In my own family, my paternal grandmother was born before her parents were married, a fact that she kept hidden from my dad. She’d even gone to the length of consistently lying about her age to cover her tracks. It wasn't until about ten years after she died that I discovered the truth – much to the amusement of my dad, who had endured years of his mum putting his dad down because his father was illegitimate! This social stigma was incorporated in law: the Registration (Scotland) Act 1854 [Link] required that all illegitimate births be marked as such in the original register (a requirement which wasn’t removed until 1919). Section 35 of the Registration (Scotland) Act stated: In the Case of an illegitimate Child it shall not be lawful for the Registrar to enter the Name of any Person as the Father of such Child, unless at the joint Request of the Mother and of the Person acknowledging himself to be the Father of such Child, and who shall in such Case sign the Register as Informant along with the Mother Consequently, unless the father acknowledged paternity and agreed in person to be registered as the father, it was illegal to record his name in the birth register, with one proviso: Provided always, that when the Paternity of any illegitimate Child has been found by Decree of any competent Court, the Clerk of Court shall, within Ten Days after the Date of such Decree, send by Post to the Registrar of the Parish in which the Father is or was last domiciled, or in which the Birth shall have been registered, Notice of the Import of such Decree in the Form of the Schedule (F.) to this Act annexed, or to the like Effect, under a Penalty not exceeding Forty Shillings in case of Failure; and on Receipt of such Notice the Registrar shall add to the Entry of the Birth of such Child in the Register the Name of the Father and the Word "Illegitimate," and shall make upon the Margin of the Register opposite to such Entry a Note of such Decree and of the Import thereof In other words, the father’s name could be added to a birth record after initial registration if paternity was proven subject to a court order, although the stigma of the word illegitimate would remain. Section 36 of the Registration (Scotland) Act also illustrates an unusual feature of Scots law which distinguishes it from English law: In the event of any Child, registered as illegitimate, being legitimated per subsequens matrimonium, the Registrar of the Parish in which the Birth of such illegitimate Child was registered shall, upon Production of an Extract of the Entry of such Marriage in the Register of Marriages, note on the Margin of the Register opposite to the Entry of the Birth the Legitimation of such Child per subsequens matrimonium, and the Date of the Registration of such Marriage Under Scots law, a child born outwith marriage could be legitimated after birth per subsequens matrimonium – literally “by subsequent marriage” – if the parents later married, provided that they were free to marry at the time of the child’s birth. From a genealogy perspective, the main import of illegitimacy is that it can prove a significant obstacle to tracing the child’s paternal ancestry. However, it need not always prove to be a brick wall. Take the case of George Kerr Waterston, an illegitimate child born on October 9 1863 in Dunnichen, Angus. His statutory birth record does not name his father, instead just giving his mother’s name as Elspeth Waterston. As mentioned earlier, the law stated that in cases of illegitimate children, the father’s name could only be included if the father signed the register in person. The following entries from the records of Dunnichen parish demonstrate that the strict rules in force for civil registration did not apply to the Church, and thus how Kirk Session records can often be used to identify fathers of illegitimate children. At Dunnichen the 18th day of October 1863 years A couple of weeks later, in the Baptismal Register for Dunnichen, we find the following entry: Kerr, George Kerr Waterston (illegitimate), S[on]. [Father] John Kerr Junior, Greenhillock Tulloes; [Mother] Elspeth Waterston, Letham. Birth 9th October 1863, Baptism 9th December 1863 This entry provides another useful lesson - it's always worth checking baptismal registers, even after the introduction of civil registration.
Monday 1st January 1855 is a key date in Scottish genealogy research. That was when the system of statutory registration was introduced, covering - in theory at least - every birth, marriage and death in Scotland. However, if you want to research back before 1855, things get a little trickier. The most commonly used records for tracing Scottish ancestry before statutory registration, are the so called OPRs, or Old Parish Registers. These have been indexed, and are available - for a fee - on the Scotland's People website. However, they only cover the established Church of Scotland. You may have a marriage record (often inaccurately referred to as a certificate) for your ancestors, showing that they were members of a dissenting church.
Scotland's fractious religious history means that historically, many Scots did not belong to the Church of Scotland. There have been numerous schisms over the centuries since the Reformation, as a result of dissent over Church doctrine and practice. In 1733, Ebenezer Erskine, William Wilson, Alexander Moncrieff and James Fisher led what became known as the First Secession, forming the Associate Presbytery. A Second Secession led by Thomas Gillespie followed in 1761. In 1820, several of the dissenting groups combined to form the United Secession Church, initially with 261,000 followers in 361 congregations. By 1830, around one in three Scots were members. But the largest secession from the Church of Scotland came with the Disruption of 1843, when a long-running dispute over patronage (triggered by the 1834 Veto Act of the General Assembly: see our parish records pages for 150,000 free records of heads of families created as a result of this Act) within the Church of Scotland led to the formation of the Free Church of Scotland. Over a third of serving ministers in the established church joined the Free Church, leaving the Church of Scotland as a minority church for the first time. Most of these various denominations kept registers of the baptisms of the children of members. Many of these registers survive today in Scottish archives. Unfortunately, for the most part they have not been indexed at all, and the registers are not available online, so finding your ancestors can be challenging. Over the last few months, we have been extracting the pre-1855 entries from many of these registers, and making them available online. These extractions are not just indexes, but full extracts of all the information contained in the registers - not just names and dates, but often home addresses, father's occupations, and in a number of instances additional notes added by the church officers. Many of these registers continue past 1855, but as there are statutory registers from that time on, we have not extracted them. So far, we've extracted the registers listed below. Click on a link to see what names these registers contain - perhaps your ancestors were dissenters?
Aberdeen St Paul Street United Presbyterian, Aberdeenshire
Aberdeen Bon Accord Free Church, Aberdeenshire Newhills Free Church, Aberdeenshire Arbroath Erskine United Presbyterian Church, Angus St George's Free Church Montrose, Angus Ardrossan St John's Free Church, Ayrshire Coldingham United Presbyterian Church, Berwickshire Langton Free Church, Berwickshire Canisbay Free Church, Caithness Lybster Free Church, Caithness Pulteneytown Free Church, Caithness Johnstone and Wamphray Free Church, Dumfriesshire Innerwick Free Church, East Lothian Edinburgh St Luke's Free Church, Edinburgh Portobello United Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh St Georges Free Church, Edinburgh Gorbals United Presbyterian Church, Glasgow Shamrock Street United Presbyterian Church Glasgow, Glasgow Strachan Free Church, Kincardineshire Milnathort United Presbyterian, Kinross-shire Auchencairn Free Church, Kirkcudbrightshire Dalbeattie Free Church, Kirkcudbrightshire Tongland and Twynholm Free Church, Kirkcudbrightshire Blantyre United Presbyterian Church, Lanarkshire Cambusnethan Associate Church, Lanarkshire Hamilton St. John's Free Church, Lanarkshire Roberton United Presbyterian Church, Lanarkshire Wellwynd United Associate Congregation Airdrie, Lanarkshire Musselburgh United Presbyterian, Midlothian Sandwick United Presbyterian Church, Orkney Stromness United Presbyterian, Orkney Aberfeldy Free Church, Perthshire Alyth Associate Congregation, Perthshire Blackford Free Church, Perthshire St Leonards Free Church Perth, Perthshire Alexandria United Secession Church, Renfrewshire Erskine Free Church, Renfrewshire Paisley, Reformed Presbyterian, Renfrewshire Bowden Free Church, Roxburghshire Kelso United Presbyterian, Roxburghshire Denny Free Church, Stirlingshire |
Old ScottishGenealogy and Family History - A mix of our news, curious and intriguing discoveries. Research hints and resources to grow your family tree in Scotland from our team. 
Archives
November 2022
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
|
Data Protection Register Registration Number: ZA018996 |