Author Topic: Kirk Records 1700s-1850s - Cruden, Fraserburgh, Strichen, Peterhead & Pitsligo  (Read 2897 times)

Offline jonwicken

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Hi I am trying to find out more about my Scottish ancestry. I first found out about my links to Aberdeenshire nearly twenty years ago and am now having a bit of a revisit.

I looked at the OPRs online a while back and so have been able to make some more progress but I would really like to know more about the other records available for the parishes.

I therefore would like to know more about the Kirk Records and wonder if anyone here has more knowledge about them in terms of transcriptions and usefulness to others in their research.

I am descended from the following families in the following locations in the 1700s to early 1800s:

CRUDEN -
Daniel family
Freeland family
Lawrence/Laurenson family (name interchangeable) - one of whom was a hand loom weaver
Shand family (of Ardiffery and Hardhill in Cruden) - seem to be farmers
Smith family

FRASERBURGH
Brown family - one of whom was a ship carpenter

STRICHEN
Reid family - also probably wrights/carpenters

PITSLIGO
Renny/Rainie family

I am also particularly interested to know if the father of this baby baptised at Peterhead is named in the Kirk Records:

3 June 1840 • Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
(Brown. Elizabeth, an un-married woman, lately in Fraserburgh, broght forth a child 20 May 1840 which was bap. named Isabella before James and Alexander Brown 03 Jun 1840.)


If anyone can therefore please give me any information on the Kirk records or is also researching these families in these parishes, I would really like to hear from you.

Many thanks,
Jon




Offline Forfarian

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Re: Kirk Records 1700s-1850s - Cruden, Fraserburgh, Strichen, Peterhead & Pitsligo
« Reply #1 on: Friday 12 August 16 07:33 BST (UK) »
It depends, really, what you mean by 'Kirk Records'.

Basically, there are two sorts of 'Kirk Records' for the period you are looking at.

It might be worth noting that 'the Kirk' is usually applied to the Church of Scotland, not to Roman Catholic or Episcopal churches.

First, there are the old parish registers (OPRs). These contain the surviving records of baptisms, banns and (sometimes) burials kept by the Church of Scotland, and they are the basis of the pre-1855 records on the Scotland's People web site. You are obviously familiar with these, so I won't go into detail, except to say that in theory the Church of Scotland registers were supposed to contain all baptisms and marriages, irrespective of the religious denomination of those involved, but in practice they don't, and the further back you go, the more people are missing from the registers.

Second, there are the records of the Kirk Sessions. Each parish has a committee of minister and elders called the Session. This committee runs the business of the parish. It usually mentions individuals only if they (a) become elders (b) become paupers (c) require the use of the parish mortcloth (d) are caught committing the sins of fornication or adultery or (e) annoy the Kirk in some way. Some Kirk Session records do contain baptisms or banns, but you will not find all your missing baptisms and banns there.

(b) and (c) involve payments of money to or by the Session, for example parishioners who are too old or infirm to earn a living may receive a small amount of money each week, and people would hire the parish mortcloth to cover the coffin of a relative during the funeral service.

(d) is usually the most detailed and interesting stuff, and very often contains enough information about the people involved to pinpoint them exactly.

(e) is rarer but also fascinating. Like my own umpteenth-great-grandfather who persistently refused to attend kirk on Sundays. The Session's reaction to this was to deny him the privileges of the Kirk, in other words ban him, which seems a bit counter-productive. However it did cause problems when he wanted to have his children baptised; the Session refused and his wife had to present them for baptism herself, which was unusual.

Most of the records of the Kirk Sessions are in the National Records of Scotland. They have been digitised but are not yet available online, though I gather that the intention is to make them available online 'soon'. I am unsure of the definition of 'soon'.

I could ramble on a bit about exceptions and other denominations, but that's probably enough to be going on with for now!
Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.

Offline jonwicken

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Re: Kirk Records 1700s-1850s - Cruden, Fraserburgh, Strichen, Peterhead & Pitsligo
« Reply #2 on: Sunday 14 August 16 19:36 BST (UK) »
Thanks so much for the reply. That was really useful information on the records indeed.

It is the Kirk Sessions that I am really interested in, but it looks like I will just wait until they come online.

Hopefully that will be soon!

Thanks again for taking the time to give me such an informative reply.

Jon



Offline Archivos

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Re: Kirk Records 1700s-1850s - Cruden, Fraserburgh, Strichen, Peterhead & Pitsligo
« Reply #3 on: Monday 15 August 16 15:16 BST (UK) »
Depending on where you're based, you can visit a number of archive offices in Scotland who provide access within their searchrooms to the kirk session records.  Aberdeen, Inverness, and Hawick are ones off the top of my head, though there are others.

You can also email certain archives who may be able to carry out research on your behalf.  Aberdeen City & Aberdeenshire Archives have a research service, and will be able to give you more advice on how to get access to the records - their email address is archives[at]aberdeencity.gov.uk - replace [at] with @


Offline jonwicken

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Re: Kirk Records 1700s-1850s - Cruden, Fraserburgh, Strichen, Peterhead & Pitsligo
« Reply #4 on: Tuesday 16 August 16 13:49 BST (UK) »
Thank you for this reply too.

I have now joined the FHS for Buchan and have just emailed them too so hopefully they may be able to assist further.

I will also contact the archives.

Thanks you,
Jon

Offline jonwicken

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Re: Kirk Records 1700s-1850s - Cruden, Fraserburgh, Strichen, Peterhead & Pitsligo
« Reply #5 on: Thursday 18 August 16 17:11 BST (UK) »
Have today received this helpful email from the Archives at Aberdeen:

The Kirk Sessions would be the main source we would point you to, but there are a couple of other options. Incidentally, we have access to the test site for the Kirk Sessions documents which you can access in our searchrooms if you live locally. The following records for Cruden Parish are available on this site:

·         Kirk session minutes (1720-1792) (CH2/447/1)
·         Kirk session minutes (1802-1837) accounts (1773-1800) (CH2/447/2)
·         Kirk session minutes (1835-1844) (CH2/447/3)
·         Kirk session minutes (1844-1867) and proclamations (1856-1866) (CH2/447/4)
·         Kirk session accounts (1717-1772) (CH2/447/6)
·         Parish church library minutes (1838-1847) (CH2/447/7)
·         Register of baptisms (1851-1901) (CH2/447/9)
·         Communion roll (1839-1845) (CH2/447/12)
·         Communion roll (1876-1894) (CH2/447/13)
·         Communion roll (1895-1907) (CH2/447/14)
·         Kirk session minutes (1687-1688) (CH2/447/16)
 
Here at the Archives, we have Assessed Tax Reports for Aberdeenshire covering the period 1799 to 1832. These were compiled by the Aberdeenshire Commissioners of Supply for tax collection purposes, and only include those who would have been liable to pay taxes on the commodities covered (i.e. windows, houses, male servants, carriages, carts, carriage and riding horses, horses used in trade and husbandry, and dogs). More information and transcriptions of some of the reports are included on our website here:

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/education_learning/local_history/archives/loc_cataloguesassessedtaxrolls.asp
 
There are other, earlier, tax records for the county in the series AS/Acom/10 and AS/Acom/15 (you can see these in our online catalogue). 
 
Another resource is our Militia records. These are detailed in our catalogue under the reference AS/AMil but there are transcriptions of some of the records, and more information on our website here:

http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/education_learning/local_history/archives/loc_cataloguesmilitia.asp
 
There are also a number of sources for Aberdeenshire available on Scotland’s Places – for the period and location you are interested in it will largely be tax records.
 
Moving back into the 17th century there is a 1696 poll tax record for the County in the University of Aberdeen’s collections, but facsimiles of an early 19th century transcription have been published by the Aberdeen & N.E. Scotland Family History Society for each parish, and we have copies in our searchroom (these are titled “The People of [Parish Name] 1696”, so you’d be looking at “The People of Cruden 1696”).
 
Depending on the standing of the individuals, you could also look at wills and testaments, or deeds and sasines : the National Records of Scotland provide good research guides for these and other sources (http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/a-z).
 
Finally, the Old Statistical Account, written by the local minister in the 1790s, would give you an idea of what the parish was like at this time. They are available online here: http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/sas/sas.asp?action=public.

Offline Archivos

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Re: Kirk Records 1700s-1850s - Cruden, Fraserburgh, Strichen, Peterhead & Pitsligo
« Reply #6 on: Friday 19 August 16 14:05 BST (UK) »
An excellent response!  Some really good sources there.

Offline jonwicken

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Re: Kirk Records 1700s-1850s - Cruden, Fraserburgh, Strichen, Peterhead & Pitsligo
« Reply #7 on: Saturday 06 January 18 19:46 GMT (UK) »
I was in Aberdeen last week and viewed the Kirk Records online at the two Archives centres in Aberdeen.

While there is a lot hey are of interest as they list elders names, illegitimacy cases and also sometimes other information on families.

For example in 1744 there is an entry in Cruden's Kirk records whereby my ancestor
Alexander Daniel was granted a 'tack' (lease) on Easter Auquharney and this names his father-in-law as George Crookshank.

Now I thought Alexander's wife Margaret Cruikshank was the daughter of George from the names of her children, their baptism witnesses and her age on her gravestone, but there being three Margaret Crookshanks baptised in Cruden around the same time made this still a little bit unsure. The Kirk records confirmed it.

The Fraserburgh Kirk records from 1802 have a list of the poor receiving relief which has many names and is interesting. Sometimes a coffin is listed as being paid for for a person and this could be useful as burials for Fraserburgh are defective/unrecorded.

In Fraserburgh I found out that my ancestor Elizabeth Brown (c1818/21-1897) of Peterhead went to Fraserburgh for some time where she lived with her aunt Elizabeth Reed and Alexander Burnet. It says at the end of August 1839 she went to a park with seaman Robert Allan where 'he had connexion with her'. Nine months later she had a daughter Isabella!

I had assumed Isabella's father was called Allan as she is listed as Isabella Allan in the 1841 census however after her mother Elizabeth Brown married Thomas Shand in 1844 he adopted her and it is his name who appears on her marriage certificate.

The 1840 baptism in Peterhead names Isabella as Brown and does not name Robert Allan as her father so this could only be found through the Kirk records.

Interestingly too that the investigation and allegation appears in the Fraserburgh record although the child was baptised in Peterhead. I read about other cases of illegitimacy being referred to other Kirks so I assume the place where the fornication happened was the place that investigated it.

The Kirk records online have no index, so you have to go through them and this takes tie. There are names in the margin but not all names are listed in the margin (for example the people my ancestor was living with in Fraserburgh when she became pregnant) so you do have to scan through everything really.

Also there is only one computer you can use at Old Aberdeen House in Aberdeen and also only oe computer at the other archives at the Town House. They therefore should be booked and also be prepared for them to not be the fastest computers in the world!

The staff were very helpful at both centres but I would certainly have a really clear idea of what you are looking for, particularly at Old Aberdeen House. The man at the Town House archives, who has apparently worked there for ten years, was excellent and so very helpful.

Just thought this information might be useful.

Best wishes,
Jon