"m" & "ni" parish Stewarton register 1693 - also Mongomerie of Lainshaw/Langshaw

[RoserAncestors]

I am looking at an image of the Stewarton parish register for 1693 (the year it begins, I believe) and specifically at the entry for Matthew Jop & Jean Montgomerie who were married on 2 August 1693.

After their names it appears to say "both m this parish". Elsewhere on the page there are entries that appear to say "ni parish of [some other parish]" of "ni this parish".

I was wondering what "m" and "ni" mean in these contexts. I was particularly interested as I wondered whether Jean Montgomerie may have been connected in some way with the Montgomeries of Langshaw/Lainshaw in Stewarton parish.

Matthew Jop/Jaap appears as a baillie to Sir Alexander Cunningham, Baronet (I think, I don't know anything about Scottish titles) of Corsehill in the court-book for the early 1700s here where he is described as a merchant of Stewarton: https://archive.org/stream/cu31924092901598/cu31924092901598_djvu.txt

[Bookbox]

I was wondering what "m" and "ni" mean in these contexts.

At a guess, it's probably just "in" in both cases. A misplaced or missing dot can easily mislead.

You might want to post some snipped images, as no-one can access the original without using their SP credits.

[RoserAncestors]

Thanks Bookbox but I'm fairly sure there are both "m"s and "ni"s with no "in"s. I didn't think I could post SP images for copyright reasons and I thought they might have a standard meaning but I guess a couple of tiny snippets for a non-commercial purpose would be fair dealing. I'm confident they are always followed by "parishe":

[Bookbox]

I'm fairly sure there are both "m"s and "ni"s with no "in"s.

Sorry to disagree, but on the basis of what you've posted I think all of them could be “in”. 

In the first two, the letters are very close together, and the dot over the i is missing

In the third, the dot over the i has been misplaced to the right, and the upstroke of the n is barely visible.

The last looks very like “in”, except there is an extraneous dot or mark in the top right corner.

In writing of this period the letters i m n u v etc are often reduced to single minims (downstrokes), with missing or nearly invisible upstrokes. It can be very difficult to distinguish between them, especially if they are written close together and if any dot over an i is misplaced or missing. You just have to count the total number of minims (downstrokes) and come up with the most likely word to fit the context.

For help with deciphering, I think you are allowed to post slightly larger extracts. So maybe post a bit more of the surrounding text for comparison, and see what others think?

[GR2]

They absolutely, definitely, 100% say "in". I have read hundreds of entries in Scottish parish registers and can assure you that it is "in". It is part of a standard phrase.

[RoserAncestors]

Thank you both very much, you have convinced me now that I look at the page more closely. Sorry for doubting you Bookbox.

There is a Stewarton baptism entry for an apparent child of Matthew & Jean that has been indexed as Janet daughter of Matthew Jop & "Janet" Montgomerie on 28 Aug 1701 that I was having trouble reading.

There seem to be 6 other children baptised to the couple all under Matthew/Mattheu Jop and "Jean" Montgomerie/Montgomrie so I wonder whether the "Janet" is an indexing mistake:

Johne 3 Jun 1694 Stewarton parish
James 8 Mar 1696 Stewarton parish
Matthew 26 Feb 1699 Stewarton parish
[Janet mentioned above]
James 11 Apr 1703 Dunlop parish
David 15 Apr 1706 Stewarton parish
Jean 18 Apr 1708 Stewarton parish

Here is the top of the page and then the entry with the one following: