Hello all,
Graham Maxwell here, Emma's husband (Emma is ill and in the hospital). I have been working on this index. Just to try and clarify....
A Sheriff Court decree records the final decision of the court after all consideration of the evidence advanced by both pursuer and defender. As far as the court was concerned, there was no "MAY" or "POSSIBLE" about the judgment, and the decree was good for enforcement (in fact, that was the very purpose of engrossing it in the register). Of course, I am sure there were miscarriages of justice, but I would not have envisaged that this would be a reason to disregard a valuable series of records.
The decrees do usually contain more information than the Register of Corrected Entries and the birth certificate. Details of the amount of aliment, for example, are included, and grandparents of the child are mentioned regularly. You would not expect to find this on a birth certificate. Of course, before 1855, there was no civil registration, and in quite a number of cases no parish register entry can be found. The court decrees almost always give the date of birth of the child, information which might not otherwise be found.
Before 1860, the court process may well also still exist, and the decree can lead you to locating this. This bundle of papers will tell you much more. They will usually contained detailed information on the case as seen from the perspectives of the pursuer and defender, and also record the evidence each sought to bring forward (including that of witnesses) to back up their case. Relatives are frequently named, and the testimony recorded can shed light on the individuals concerned and their lives.
We have started with Roxburghshire (bear in mind this has only been going for a week or so) and soon plan to widen to other counties. We had to begin somewhere.
We hoped the information in the free index would be helpful to people, never mind the extra information they can get by consulting the original decree by means of the NRS reference which is given by means of the index results. If the general feeling is that the information is of little value, that is rather disheartening but I guess that's the way it goes. Of course, if the project is not helpful to people it may be better to discontinue this and move on to something else.
Graham