OPR query

[Andrew C.]

I am a bit confused by an OPR as best I can make out it states:

April 29th (1807)
Alexander Murcar in Gaukhill (Gauchhill, Kintore) had a ? son brought forth by Ann Maitland in Drum 6th April last baptized 12th ? ? named James. Witnesses William Stephen and John fowler.

The next entry in the OPR is for a birth in New Deer and in the census New Deer is given as the place of birth for James. Would Kintore come under New Deer and if it does say Drum I thought that was near Banchory. Also the dates confuse me a bit I have James being born on the 12th March although the entry looks more like April than March. Why would the entry date be April 29th seems a bit far from the 12th. Anyone shed some light for me?

[GR2]

Drum is a common place-name or part of a place-name. It means a ridge. There is a place in New Deer called Drum. No connection with the Drum west of Aberdeen.

The child was illegitimate, the father's address being out of the parish, the mother living at Drum, New Deer.

HOWEVER, if the entry in the register does not specifically say Kintore and you have assumed it must be there because there is a place called Gauchhill in Kintore, I would suggest that the father may actually be from Gookhill or Goukhill which is a place in New Deer. A gowk is a cuckoo.

[Forfarian]

You didn't say which OPR - presumably it was the New Deer parish register?

If, in an OPR, you come across 'so-and-so in xxx', you can almost always assume that xxx is a place in the parish of which you are looking at the register. If anyone is mentioned who lives in a place in a different parish, it almost invariably says, "in xxx in the parish of yyy". Never assume that, just because you have heard of a place with a particular name, that there aren't other places of the same name.

There is, for instance, a croft in Moray that is marked as Edinburgh on old maps, a farm called Dundee in Aberdeenshire, and an Ireland in Angus. Some names, like Kirkton or Milltown or Mains, occur in almost every parish. And there is yet another Drum in the parish of Keith.

I don't quite understand your question about the dates in the OPR. If they are legible, then assume them to be correct, even if you have found conflicting information elsewhere, for example on Ancestry. The original document trumps any number of transcriptions an indexes. Quite often one of these indexes will give the date of baptism rather than the date of birth. Maybe the baptism was on 12 May and someone misread it as 12 March, and you originally picked it up from that?

The first question mark is likely to be 'natural' - a child of married parents is often termed 'lawful' and a child of unmarried parents as 'natural', which is (in my opinion) preferable to 'brought forth in uncleanness' or 'brought forth in fornication' which are also used in some OPRs and Kirk Session records.

[Andrew C.]

Thanks for the very swift and even more informative replies. Clearly some schoolboy errors on my part. I was given a photocopy of the OPR so did not know where it was from, but yes it does read as Gaukhill so they are both from New Deer then. Another illegitimate child in the family!. I see from the OPR that there is a wedding for Alexander to Mary McKen on 10/08/1809 and an Alexander marrying a Margaret Smith 04/12/1823 perhaps one or both are the same Alexander. Can't find any trace of Ann after this. 

The confusion over the dates, I originally got the dates from Familysearch which gave the birth as 12th March which, when you go into the OPR's it gives the same date. When you go into the entry however looking at it again it seems a very fancy l so it probably says Drum 6th April baptized 12th April. It could be a transcription error.  Would the register not be updated immediately why wait unti the 29th? Saying that the entry before it says 15th April and it seems to refer to a birth on the 26th February baptized 17th March.

So thanks with your help I am a bit clearer.