Inverness 'paternity' records

[ScottishAncestry]

Hi,

I wanted to let you know that our volunteer has begun indexing Inverness 'paternity' cases. Entries from 1842-1850 are now online.

For a number of years, we have been indexing ‘Actions of Affiliation and Aliment’ found in the extracted decrees of the Scottish Sheriff Courts. We have so far indexed 25,192 entries and the index is free to search on our website. These are cases where the mother of an illegitimate child takes the father to court to prove he is the father and force him to contribute towards caring for the child.

You can search by both parents or just one. It can be quite interesting to search by 'defender', that is your male ancestors, and see which of them had a child you know nothing about! http://www.scottishindexes.com

Hope you find something useful.

Emma

[HmmS336]

Thank you - I am having a good browse whilst looking at my family tree!