Re: Catherine Wallace
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In reply to:
Re: Catherine Wallace
thelma thornton 12/17/13
Catherine - I agree with Thelma. The absence of parental information on most pre-1855 marriage and death records, make it rare to be able to prove that the births that you find in the parish records are the correct ones.
Therefore it is very unusual to be able to trace back beyond anyone who was born around the 1750's/1760's, with any degree of confidence.
There are of course rare exceptions, such as when a family bible is passed down through generations, or a multi-generational gravestone is found, but these are very much the exception rather than the rule. As Thelma said, only a very small percentage of Scotlands population left a will prior to the 19th century.
Other sources such as kirk session records, sasine records etc again do not provide parents names, so are of no help in pushing you back a further generation.
If you have taken the information from ancestry.com, then you will have to ask the inputter where he/she obtained the primary sources which allowed them to prove their findings. I would expect that you'll find that it is based mainly on conjecture.