Cruden Parish Registers

[jonwicken]

Hi Rootschat,

I am wondering if anyone please knows if there is an analysis of the parish registers of Cruden anywhere?

I know they are defective, with for example burials being missing for December 1713–May 1794 and 1812-1827, but I would like to know more about what survives with some sort of write up about them.

I have been looking at baptisms for the period in the middle of the 1700s and am a bit surprised to find how the baptisms written on the pages are so out of order.

For example a typical page has baptisms written in this date order:

4 June 1756
25 January 1756
13 June 1756
19 October 1755
29 March 1756
19 June 1756
30 May 1756
24 December 1755
12 June 1756

Now it is not possible for them to have happened in this order so how exactly can this be? I have come across entries written in different parts of registers and gaps filled in, but this is different. The entries are all written neatly in this order and I can't work out why.

Any thoughts would be gratefully received please!

Thanks,
Jon

[Forfarian]

I am wondering if anyone please knows if there is an analysis of the parish registers of Cruden anywhere?

http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/sct/ABD/Cruden#ChurchRecords

Or the Detailed List at https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/old-parish-registers/list-of-old-parish-registers.

There might be something in http://stataccscot.edina.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/parish/Aberdeen/Cruden.

Now it is not possible for them to have happened in this order so how exactly can this be?

Poor record-keeping? Maybe a new clerk had recently taken over and realised that the previous one had not been keeping the register properly. Maybe the clerk had been jotting them down as and when he remembered, and then copied them into the register. Or maybe the minister had discovered that the register was defective, and had asked for parents to come and report possible missing records. or maybe there was some other explanation.

It is possible that the Kirk Session records might contain some information that would clarify this question.

[jonwicken]

Thanks very much for the reply and the links. I am starting to assume that there was an older register that had baptism entries all over the place and at some point a later clerk transferred them to a new register, hence this disorder.

I hadn't thought about the Kirk records giving a clue to this. They have been on my radar although not for this purpose and like many others I am waiting for them to come online! I am hoping it won't be long now!

Thanks again,
Jon