RootsChat.Com

I've just found from the censuses that Margaret Burgess, daughter of James Burgess and Janet Wright, was apparently born in Inverkillen, Ireland.

Mr Google has never heard of Inverkillen. Has anyone else any ideas

(a) where it might be

(b) why a joiner/carpenter and his wife from Moray might have gone there temporarily* and

(c) whether any baptism records from there have survived?

*Their youngest recorded children were both born in Elgin, in 1806 and 1812.

Does anyone know for certain exactly when the names Forfarshire, Elginshire, Linlithgowshire, Edinburghshire and Haddingtonshire were coined for Angus, Moray, West, Mid and East Lothian respectively?

And by what method? And why were analogous names not inflicted on Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, Sutherland, Kincardine, Fife, Bute and Argyll?

I know the name Forfarshire was abolished by an Act of Parliament in 1928, but it seems much harder to find the starting date.

Rothes, 1813
July 11. Preach'd and Colld 10s 11d
July 18. No sermon, the kirk being unroofed
July 25. Preach'd in the Minister's garden Col'd 6s 6d
Augt 1. Preach'd in the Minrs garden Coll 6s 6d
Augt 8. Preach'd and Coll 5s 10d
Augt 15. No sermon
Augt 22. Coll'd in the Minrs garden 3s 6½d
Augt 29. Preach'd in the Minrs garden 4s 8¾d
Sept 5. No sermon Minr at Botriphnie assisting at the Sacrament
Sept 12. People assembled in the church and prayed but no collection
Septr 19. Preach'd in the Kirk Coll'd 9s 6¼d
Even back then repairs took a wee while to complete!

I am becoming more and more disenchanted with the census transcriptions on FindMyPast. Not because they mangle the personal names like Ancestry does, but because they mangle the names of parishes/districts.

For example, in their index to the 1841 census there are hundreds (probably thousands) of people listed as being in Lanark, Lanarkshire, but when you look at the individual transcriptions the addresses are clearly in the city of Glasgow, not in the burgh or parish of Lanark, and Glasgow is not mentioned in the transcription. For example addresses in Cowcaddens or Gallowgate.

And in some years they list all the information in all the headers, so you can get multiple names of overlapping districts, defined for all sorts of different purposes, supposedly part of one address.

Then in 1861, every address I have looked at in the parish of Mortlach has been listed as in Marnoch, Mortlach, Banffshire. Marnoch is an entirely different parish. It's not even next door to Mortlach, except in the alphabetical list.

Mortlach again, in 1871. Addresses in Glenrinnes are listed as 'Mortlach, Glenrinnes, Banffshire'. As Glenrinnes in only part of Mortlach, they should be listed as 'Glenrinnes, Mortlach, Banffshire'. There are umpteen similar examples all over Scotland.

It's fine for me. I live in Scotland and I can read maps and plans and work out where places or addresses actually are. But it's unhelpful, to say the least, to confuse folk from distant places who don't know the lie of the land here. And potentially misleading.

I've tried to get FindMyPast to do something about these worst examples but I have got nowhere so far.

The only answer is: don't trust transcriptions. Always use transciptions on commercial web sites as finding aids, and check them by looking up the originals at Scotland's People.

I also wish that FindMyPast had included the parish/district, enumeration district and page numbers in their transcriptions. But if the absence of those details encourages people to look at the originals, than I suppose that omission could be regarded as a Good Thing.