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Re: MYSTERY IN FINDING,ANDREWS ANCESTORS
Posted by: Alex Dow (ID *****6925) Date: July 27, 2009 at 01:24:23
In Reply to: Re: MYSTERY IN FINDING,ANDREWS ANCESTORS by David Andrews of 59517

Morning David

The BEST site is Scotland's People-

http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

It is the most comprehensive available, covering BMDs, Censuses, Wills etc; and is run on behalf of and uses the records of the Registrar General of Scotland, basically held in New Register House Edinburgh.

For BMDs, it has two major series, the Statutory (or Civil) Registrations started in 1855 when the post of RGoS was created and still in use today, plus the OPRs (Old Parish Records) of the mainly presbyterian churches in Scotland prior to 1855, starting about 1553.

The SRs are probably about 99% complete, being "recent" and rigorously kept. (Can never be 100% for various reasons.)

The OPRs are much more patchy, probably covering about 25% of the persons who ever existed in the period covered. This stems from a number of reasons, starting with the denominational aspect that the other churches did not hand over there OPRs in 1855, some churches were very poor at record-keeping and record preservation. Some OPRs have come to light when other "books" of the period have been conserved, showing up as reinforcements glued in to covers etc.

Then there has been fire, flood, vermin, wars and the like.

However, virtually all of those 19th century and earlier SRs and OPRs have been scanned, so you can view the originals on-line, complete with scratchy writing, tears, blots etc.

Thus you can see the complete contents, whatever they happen to be - the names of Informants, Witnesses, Ministers, Registrars etc, addresses, occupations, whether parents were deceased at the time of marriage, the parents' marriage relative to births and so on.

Again because of the rigour, the SRs normally have close to all of those details; BUT the OPR for a baptism/birth frequently does not even mention mother.

Keep in mind that whilst the SRs are definitely Births, Marriages and Deaths, the OPRs are really for Baptisms, Banns and Rent of Mortcloth. In the latter, the solid event may be recorded or it might not.

When using Scotland's People, keep in mind that the 1841 Census particularly, being non-denominational, can reveal persons born back to around 1760. This applies in reducing degrees to the later Censuses also.

The LDS Family Search "International Genealogical Index 1881 British Census" covers England and Wales only, omitting Scotland and (all) Ireland.

As an example, I had a phone call from a stranger on Friday evening who because he has the same name as me, occasionally receives enquiries from his colleagues about other non-genealogical matters that I am involved in.

It so happened, he does not really know his family background; but born and living in England, he has reason to believe that his family originates in Scotland.

With only his father's name and a reasonable guess at when his father was also born in England, I traced his ancestry back 5 generations in an hour, using initially Find My Past for the English birth; then Scotland's People for earlier line.

On SP, that included VIEWing some of the Scanned IMAGEs to get the details to move back confidently.

The total cost was under £10.

========================================

I have taken a look at the name ANDREWS on the Free Surname facility on SP, there are very few in Scotland, particularly back in the likely period.

The name seems to crop up down in south-west England; and on the LDS FS site, I noted two other potential siblings, the mother's name being "XTIAN". The times and near-location of those two are suggestive that it is likely to be the same family.

No guarantees though!

Alex


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