Author Topic: Register of Testaments - some explanation required, please  (Read 1278 times)

Offline lucymags

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Register of Testaments - some explanation required, please
« on: Wednesday 29 November 17 05:33 GMT (UK) »
I stumbled across this most useful source almost incidentally. Specific to Edinburgh, but I am posting it in the general Scotland forum as I suspect that it's not peculiar to one city.

The Commissariat Record of Edinburgh - Register of Testaments (1899). https://archive.org/stream/scottishrecordso03scotuoft#page/n9/mode/2up

I'm assuming that its a record of people's wills, but what I'm not clear on is what the dates in the right hand column are likely to mean - would that be the date that the will was made, or executed, or...?

The one I am looking at - "Cunninghame... David, late baker in Edinburgh" - says "See Kirkland, Elizabeth", but both are dated 21 May 1794.

Only a few are described as "late", although some widow(er)s are described as "relicts".

Any ideas?

Edit: David is shown as deceased on the marriage register of his daughter, on 19 Oct 1781 - so well before this May 1794 date. Could E. Kirkland perhaps have died on the later date?

Offline GR2

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Re: Register of Testaments - some explanation required, please
« Reply #1 on: Wednesday 29 November 17 09:09 GMT (UK) »
What is recorded varies considerably. You could have a "testament testamentar" containing a will or a "testament dative" which does not contain one. Both usually contain an inventory of assets and debts. They can be recorded a considerable time after the death itself. You have to read the full document to see. The date is probably the date of recording.

Offline lucymags

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Re: Register of Testaments - some explanation required, please
« Reply #2 on: Wednesday 29 November 17 10:19 GMT (UK) »
What is recorded varies considerably. You could have a "testament testamentar" containing a will or a "testament dative" which does not contain one. Both usually contain an inventory of assets and debts. They can be recorded a considerable time after the death itself. You have to read the full document to see. The date is probably the date of recording.

Okay - thanks very much for that. I will have a look tomorrow and see if the will is recorded or available on ScotlandsPeople.

Offline GR2

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Re: Register of Testaments - some explanation required, please
« Reply #3 on: Wednesday 29 November 17 14:09 GMT (UK) »
I wonder if these are your man and his father?

Edinburgh burgess roll:

Cunningham, David, junior, baker, Burgess, in right of his father, David Cunningham, senior, baker, Burgess ........... 14th September 1774

Edinburgh Apprentices:

Cunningham, David, son to David Cunningham in Lomphoy, prentice to John Allan, baxter, Burgess .......... 28th March 1739


Offline lucymags

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Re: Register of Testaments - some explanation required, please
« Reply #4 on: Thursday 30 November 17 01:02 GMT (UK) »
I wonder if these are your man and his father?

Edinburgh burgess roll:

Cunningham, David, junior, baker, Burgess, in right of his father, David Cunningham, senior, baker, Burgess ........... 14th September 1774

Edinburgh Apprentices:

Cunningham, David, son to David Cunningham in Lomphoy, prentice to John Allan, baxter, Burgess .......... 28th March 1739

Ah, thanks for that. That does seem likely, although there may be 3 generations of Davids...? (Mostly spelt Cuningham in the records, but also Cuninghame and Cunningham.)
Currently I have:
1. the youngest born in 1755 (no record of later life as yet - his sister Elisabeth is my line so I have been concentrating on that).
2. his father David who must have been born around the 1720s. Died before the marriage of his daughter Elisabeth in 1781, and I have found the likely death record, 1775.
3. I am still trying to establish 2's parents, but have found one possible with a father David:
Name            David Cunningham
Gender    Male
Christening Date   24 Aug 1725
Christening Place   , CURRIE, MIDLOTHIAN, SCOTLAND
Birth Date   15 Aug 1725
Father's Name   David Cunningham
Mother's Name   Agnes Newton
- and his second daughter is called Agnes, so this may be add slightly to the weight of that one. The other two which match best have differently-named fathers.

Does the first one mean that there were two Davids, both bakers, in 1774? - Davids 1 & 2 above?
And the second, a David, son of David, who becomes/is an apprentice to John Allen in 1739? - David 2, who is a son of a David (3), probably not a baker himself?
Is Lomphoy a place? The only reference found by Google led me to the online publication of what must be the same source you have quoted from? https://archive.org/stream/scottishrecordso47scotuoft#page/n111/mode/2up

Incidentally, Elisabeth marries Alexander Abercrombie, "baker in Bristo St, and Elizabeth Cunningham, residenter there, and lawful daughter of the deceased David Cunningham, baker in Edinburgh" in 1781.

Edit: I've answered one of my questions above. "Lomphoy" must mean Lymphoy House, which is in Currie and so matches that birth record I found...

Offline Forfarian

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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.