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What’s in a name ?

Emily Atack was the latest celebrity to feature on the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are programme this week.  It was very interesting to hear the revelation that her relative Sir Paul McCartney could easily have been known as Sir Paul McCarthy if his Irish ancestor’s name had not been misheard by an official when they came to Liverpool.

And it set me thinking about the undue importance that many of us attribute to spelling or pronounciation of our surnames. There are some great examples with some traditional Border surnames. For example, is it Home or Hume ?  Ker or Kerr ?  The difference in spelling comes down to the way that different landed branches of the family chose to identify themselves in the 17th century.

Over the years there’s been a lot of speculation about the different forms of the surname Elliot and the number of L’s and T’s in the name. And that once again was influenced by how a landed branch of the family styled themselves. But of more interest for me was where did the ‘i’ in the name come from.  Back in the 16th and the first half of the 17th century the name was almost always written as ‘Ellot’ or sometimes ‘Ellott’. 

For example, here’s the name of Thomas Ellott represented in a Liddesdale rental document from 1646

Once again in another rental document several years later in 1654 almost all the tenant names are spelled ‘Ellott’ as above although one of the signatures on the document ‘Eliott’ is a sign of things to come.

But by 1675 the ‘i’ has become the norm e.g here we see Gavin Elliott of Midlemylne mentioned.

So we can fairly accurately pinpoint when the change came about, and guess that it was perhaps down to local pronounciation that the ‘i’ emerged.

And my own surname is not immune either.  References to the name in the 17th century and earlier were appropriate for a name which describes a physical attribute i.e. the name was spelled as it was pronounced in the Scots dialect i.e. Armstrang.  Most early OPR entries are indeed for Armstrang but by the late 18th century the name had become anglicised to Armstrong.

Many Irvings fled from Dumfriesshire to Ireland at the time of the Ulster plantation. The surname seems to have got corrupted and changed there so that Irwin, Erwin and Ervine were all variants that emerged and can now be found in many English-speaking countries.

Johnston(e) is another very popular Dumfriesshire name and has quite a different origin to the English surname Johnson.  However it transpires that US President Lyndon Baines Johnson actually had a Scottish Johnston ancestor who became known as Johnson after he emigrated to America.

So whatever your name is today, there’s a good chance that your paternal ancestors surname may have been slightly different.

[You can find more old rental documents at https://relativelyscottish.com/rentals-of-the-buccleuch-estates-1630-1833/]

Gone but not forgotten

Adamsrow, Newton, Midlothian around 1900

From time to time, I find that my clients in USA, Canada or Australia had ancestors who lived in miners’ rows in Ayrshire or Midlothian. Understandably, they often plan to come back to Scotland to see where their ancestors lived. But I often have to tell them that they’ll find little or no evidence of their ancestors. In many cases with the demise of mining, these habitations have been wiped off the face of the earth.

Midlothian

Rows like Adamsrow, Squaretown and Redrow in Newton parish, Midlothian were first established in the 18th century when coal was first mined commercially in the area. Squaretown disappeared during the 19th century with Adamsrow and Redrow surviving until WW2. The quality of the housing, originally built by the mining companies, became subject to greater scrutiny during the Victorian era. A fascinating glimpse of the harsh reality of life in one of these dwellings is given in the 1875 Notes on Miners’ Houses. This was originally published in the Glasgow Herald and has been reproduced on the fascinating Scottish Mining Website. Many specific locations are featured including Adamsrow. It is noted there that there are no closets or ashpits provided for any of the houses although there was a plan to build closets. No trace remains of Adamsrow which was located close to what is now Shawfair railway station.

Ayrshire

I think that where possible, it is essential to try to keep the memory of these forgotten communities alive. I am therefore delighted to see the efforts being made to record oral history of some of the rows and villages in East Ayrshire, many of which have now been lost. The University of Strathclyde is closely involved here.

One such community stands out due to the fame of one of its former residents. In 1913, Bill Shankly was born in the Ayrshire mining settlement of Glenbuck. As well as being an international footballer he went on to become a legendary Liverpool FC manager. He built the club up, brought English League and UEFA Cup success, and commanded huge respect from the fans. A memorial stone to him has been erected at the site of Glenbuck village.

Postcards from the Past

My father died earlier this year and I inherited a huge pile of Edwardian postcards which had been handed down the generations. Most of the cards were published by Raphael Tuck and Sons. I decided to find out a bit more about the company.

Raphael Tuck was a Prussian immigrant who, together with his wife, started up a business in London in 1866 publishing and selling pictures and greeting cards. the business grew steadily over the years but the master stroke came when they introduced coloured art postcards into their catalogue. At that time the format of postcards was strictly controlled by the Universal Postal Union and only allowed a brief message on the picture side which limited the size of the picture. After lengthy negotiations, Tuck was able to convince the British Postmaster General to accept both the name and address coupled with the message on one side and a full size picture on the other. This revolutionary agreement in 1898, opened up great opportunities for the company to sell postcards featuring the artwork of many contemporary artists. They created a hugely successful collectibles market by selling themed cards in packs of 6. As well as more conventional views of beauty spots and iconic buildings across the world they developed cards featuring occupational and military subjects. For we genealogists, these are of much more interest. Their Scottish subjects for example included ‘A Scottish Washing’ and ‘Scottish Fisher Life’ in their Oilette range. The range was introduced in 1903 and designed to look like oil paintings. Two of the Scottish Washing theme are illustrated here and provide an interesting impression about how a wash day might have been conducted in different settings.

It makes an interesting contrast to the rather straight-laced posed family photographs which dominated the later Victorian period.

More online resources

2020 has been a tough year for everyone and that includes those researching their family history. At last we have the hope of vaccinating the whole population within the next year so perhaps better times lie ahead. For many though, archives and family history centres have been closed for months and all those plans we had have had to take our research further have had to be put on ice.

Here at Relatively Scottish this year we’ve done our best to make some of our resources available more widely to help those of you with an interest in Liddesdale and Canonbie in particular. These are normally only available to those who visit archives like the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh (closed since March 2020) in person. Estate records and Kirk Session records can be a great resource to use for those who have exhausted more conventional resources like Old Parish Registers and Monumental Inscriptions.

In addition to the 15 documents that we currently have online, we’ve just added two more. We’ve now made available a full transcription of the Canonbie parish rental for the year 1792-1793 based on the records of the Buccleuch Estates. This is possibly the most detailed Buccleuch rental document with everything from the largest farms down to the most basic cottar’s cottage included.

AND we’re delighted to include a very early Communion roll for Canonbie covering the years 1749-1760 free of charge. The communion roll is one of the gems contained within the kirk session records. There are many communion rolls within kirk session records but most date from no earlier than the mid-19th century. So a mid-18th century roll is rather special !

We’ve heard that Scotlandspeople will be making the kirk session records searchable free of charge online sometime during 2021 which is exciting news. However at this stage there are no plans for Scotlandspeople to provide any indexing which can mean that searches can potentially take a long time (many of the kirk session minutes are very wordy and not always written in the best handwriting). All of our index documents based on kirk session minutes (irregular marriages, illegitimate births etc) include page references to the the original records which will allow users to access the full original documentation easily and quickly once the kirk session records are made available online.

And look out for a further index document on illegitimate births to appear here shortly. It will be for the adjacent Dumfriesshire parish of Kirkpatrick-Fleming. There are over 400 illegitimate births for Bells, Irvings and Carruthers to name but a few !

Kirk Session Records can smash through your family history brick wall

All too often, searching in the Old Parish Registers (OPRs) fails to produce the proof that we’re looking for in terms of a birth or a marriage in the late 18th or early 19th centuries. Now it could be that the ancestors concerned had seceded from the Established Church of Scotland and their records therefore do not feature in the OPRs or the records have not survived or were never properly recorded in the first place. But, particularly for births and marriages in Dumfriesshire and other parts of south Scotland, the Kirk Session records provide an alternative gold mine for genealogists.

The Kirk Session could be regarded as the management committee for the parish and one of their primary objectives was to pay close attention the the morals of their congregation. While they did record and discipline behaviours like drunkenness and failing to observe the Sabbath properly, they were generally much more interested in sexual transgressions. Normally, all such activity was recorded in some detail for which we genealogists are eternally grateful.

Robert Burns appearing before the Kirk Session

One of the basic sins was an irregular marriage i.e. a couple could legally get married outside the church – particularly common for parishes close to the English border where they were able to nip across and get married by either English clergy or lay-men. These marriages were legal in the eyes of the law but the Church did not approve and would discipline any participants. This disciplinary process is fully recorded in the kirk session minutes. These marriages do not generally appear in the OPRs.

The Elders (members of the Kirk Session) would typically keep their eyes open for any single women in the parish who appeared to be pregnant and any such women would be referred to the Session. They would be required to come before a meeting of the Session and confirm their pregnancy and name the father, and where the activity took place. The suspected father would then be summoned to appear also and in most cases, accepted that they were the father. Both parties would then be subject to a disciplinary process requiring them to be rebuked in front of the whole congregation perhaps several Sundays in a row depending on the particular circumstances. In some cases they could pay an additional fine in order to avoid the repetitive and presumably embarrassing process of rebuke.

In rural Dumfriesshire where there was a large population of young farmworkers, both male and female, living away from home, there were a large number of these cases which means that the kirk session records can often be very extensive. Minutes for Canonbie parish for example extend to over 1000 pages even with some dates missing. In some cases, the expectant couple would choose to get married by the church but often this didn’t happen. The church itself was particularly concerned that the father would accept responsibility for the child which meant that he would be expected to provide something for the child financially. This meant that the parish would not be responsible for supporting the child.

Although there was talk of Kirk Session records being made available via Scotlandspeople, this is not the case today and there are no immediate plans that I’m aware of to do so. Consultation therefore of the Kirk Session records (which have been fully imaged) requires a visit to the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh or one of the satellite access points elsewhere in Scotland. The online NRS catalogue (https://catalogue.nrscotland.gov.uk/nrsonlinecatalogue/welcome.aspx) can be used to check the kirk session minutes coverage for each parish. Enter ‘CH2’ in the reference field when searching. Relatively Scottish can search kirk session records for you at the NRS – please get in touch to learn more.

Transcending the mundane

Family history is something which I find fascinating but with the best will in the world can’t be said normally to be of life changing importance to others.

Sometimes though, the result of your genealogical  activities transcend the mundane and take on an altogether higher order of importance when families are brought together for the very first time.

Yesterday was just such a day.  A friend was able to speak to her 92 year old grandmother for the very first time . She called me excitedly late last night to tell me the wonderful news.

vicphoto3Sadly her father never knew his mother – removed from her at birth after being born in an institution prior to the formation of the NHS.  He died a few years ago knowing nothing about his mother other than some meagre information on a 1947 birth certificate. No photographs – no memorabilia. Last year my friend asked me to help in trying to trace her father’s family.

Over time, I uncovered a sad trail of parental divorce, foster care, then removal to educational and health institutions throughout the forties and fifties in different parts of Scotland.  The search was anything but straightforward with hundred year closure rules working against us on more than one occasion. When I eventually managed to trace her granny getting married in the 1960s in her forties and going on to have a family of her own, there was still a huge degree of uncertainty about whether she would still be alive today.  But after a chance conversation that my friend had with someone from the same area in Paisley, it transpired that her grandmother was still very much alive and living independently as a widow. So, with a degree of trepidation, my friend summoned up the courage to call her grandmother directly. Following on from that successful first step, the next agreed step is for my friend to write her granny a full explanatory letter with the hope that they can meet in person quite soon. Result !

Who Do You Want in Your Past ?

wdytya

Have you ever watched an episode of the phenomenally successful BBC show Who Do You Think You Are ? and wonder why these celebrities appear to have such interesting origins ? Perhaps you’ve thought to yourself if only my own ancestral background was half as interesting ?

Who Do You Think You Are ?  has now racked up 12 series on BBC TV, as well as a host of international spin-offs, a magazine and a 3 day annual live show attracting countless thousands of would-be family historians.  It has popularised family history by making it interesting to all.

Well here’s a little secret about the celebs chosen – they’re no different to you and me ! It is true that from time to time celebs have been approached to appear on the show but have had to be ‘rejected’ because they didn’t have a  sufficiently interesting family history  to create an hour of good television. But for the most part their stories are not so very different to our own. The show is able to be highly selective about the particular family line chosen.  Think of it this way – we each have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents.   That’s 16 different family branches and sixteen different stories that can be told.  With a bit of informed research there’s every chance that engaging stories can be identified in some of our own family bloodlines. It could be about migration or the military, about poverty or oppression, or one of entrepreneurship or invention. If records were kept, then they can usually be uncovered !

I’d encourage everyone with an interest in their family history to look beyond the obvious in 2016 and explore different branches of their family. It might just throw up an engaging story, worthy of a WDYTYA episode, and bring your family history to life.