Author Topic: Selkirk Dissenters / the Associate Synod / Dr. George Lawson  (Read 26832 times)

Offline Alexandrina

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Re: Selkirk Dissenters / the Associate Synod / Dr. George Lawson
« Reply #9 on: Wednesday 08 August 07 16:57 BST (UK) »
Hello again Justin & Jap

Thank you for that JAP,

Also we have Paisley people as well, so will have to have another look now that we are looking for the Walkers. I know some of ours are Guthries.

I looked for the Walkers Justin, and found some possible leads.

Firstly did you consider that William Walker may have married twice?

I found William Walker aged 15-18 in 1818 in Selkirk.  He married Helen Inglis in 1818 around the same era that my Murrays were married in Selkirk.  Helen also known as Helen Ingles.

They had four children then I think she may have possibly died. Children may not have survived however we find

Robert 1819
Robert 1820
Alexander 1820
and James Walker 1822

William and Helen were married Banns read in both Selkirk and Melrose, which is quite close. Family seem to be from Bowden which is within walking distance of Selkirk just over the common I think. Perhaps some may contradict this, I looked on maps ages ago and Bowden was much closer to Selkirk town than many Selkirk districts were to each other.  You might find graves at Melrose Abbey or Old Kirk Yard Selkirk where Wallace declared for Scotland. Its in Scott's Place near Market Square if you live over there.

Marriage was 12/1/1818 in Melrose and  16/1/1818 in Selkirk

If Helen died then William may have married again to Margaret Cross. That was quite common as so many mums died in childbirth. I have Murrays marrying 3 times after death of wives etc.

Then he could have had another James if 1st James etc died then the other children.

As I said I found a family of Walkers in Bowden that could be them. Zillions of Walkers in Galashiels as it was centre of Manufacturing industry etc.

William Walker 1796 to Robert Walker and Elizabeth Stenhouse in Melrose.

Interestingly:  James Walker married Elizabeth or Eliza Lawson in 1855 8 December Old Church St Pancras London,

Only child on IGI is William Renny Walker, their 1st born  15/11/1856 Arbroath Angus. Perhaps she also died and James Walker married again too.

Also you will need to always look in Roxburghshire registers if you research in Selkirk as there is much tooing and froing and much overlapping of districts such as Lilliesleaf, Melrose Ladhope and Bowden just to name a few. I am no expert however after researching this area for 25 years I do know that Roxburghshire registers hold much valuable information for Selkirk researchers.
Could you let me know the names you have ...who was James' wife married in 1855, was it Elizabeth Lawson?

Did you look on NAS for Galloway and Walker Manufacturing?

Will keeo hunting..please send more info

Cheers
Sandie ;)
MURRAY NOBLE MOFFAT MACDOUGALL  LEES MCINNES  RINTOUL KENNEDY ANDERSON HALL KELSO REID BOWES STEWART LINTON GAFF LOWRIE  ELLIOTT  GRANT TURNBULL BURNETT STENHOUSE MONTGOMERY SWORD CARROLL DALGLEISH  Mostly of the Scottish Borders Selkirk & Melrose Temple Balantrodoch & Skye

Offline JustinL

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Re: Selkirk Dissenters / the Associate Synod / Dr. George Lawson
« Reply #10 on: Wednesday 08 August 07 18:35 BST (UK) »
Sandie,

You're incredible!

What is your source for his age in 1818?

The two attached files give you a pretty complete picture of what I know of my Walkers and William's wife's family. Well done for cross-checking some of my other posts.

I had not considered the possibility of William being previously married. But you're right it was very common. However, William was in Paisley no later than March 1822 (his first daughter with Margaret being born in December).

I can view the microfilm of the complete OPRs at the Mitchell Library. I assume that there are no other more complete versions.

The Melrose link is particularly interesting; I found this entry in the Melrose register - James Walker and Janet Sclater, had a son, William, baptised on 9 Jun 1797 in Melrose.

While looking through the baptism register yesterday, I noticed that George Lawson's predecessor, Rev. Andrew Moir, was very popular. A good third to a half of all baptisms in the 1760s were performed by him. Interestingly, he had his children baptised by AS ministers from Stow and Jedburgh.

I reallly appreciate your help and value your knowledge.

Justin


Offline Alexandrina

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Re: Selkirk Dissenters / the Associate Synod / Dr. George Lawson
« Reply #11 on: Friday 10 August 07 10:17 BST (UK) »
Hi Justin,

Have sent email and personal message yesterday as well as this tonight.

Shall check James Walker and Janet Sclater, I have lots of Murrays baptised at that Jedburgh Associate Session, always wondered if many came from Selkirkshire, looks like Rev Moir didn't mind the travelling, I wonder how long it took by carriage from Selkirk to Jedburgh & return.

Now back to William Walker. There should be information on him in the NAS if he was a manufacturer and the partners should have registered the business and done all the usual things legally. Much information can be gleaned that way if there is indeed archival material.

Also he would have been an apprentice originally or trained by his own father in that trade, so possibly Robert Walker in Melrose if this is them, may have also had a similar business.  You need to look for all Walkers in that trade in business at that time as sons often followed fathers into a similar trade/occupation /business etc.

Also their books journals and archives could be held in archives in NAS as well and you could also look in Renfrewshire archives in library there. Have you found the addresses of the factory etc?

Shall research more. Did you notice that William and Helen's children are not on IGI ?  This makes it more likely that they didn't register them with Church of Scotland, and that they are also dissenters and more likely to be related to your Walkers!

Shall read your PDF material Justin, thanks for sending all.
Cheers for now
Sandie
MURRAY NOBLE MOFFAT MACDOUGALL  LEES MCINNES  RINTOUL KENNEDY ANDERSON HALL KELSO REID BOWES STEWART LINTON GAFF LOWRIE  ELLIOTT  GRANT TURNBULL BURNETT STENHOUSE MONTGOMERY SWORD CARROLL DALGLEISH  Mostly of the Scottish Borders Selkirk & Melrose Temple Balantrodoch & Skye

Offline ibi

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Re: Selkirk Dissenters / the Associate Synod / Dr. George Lawson
« Reply #12 on: Saturday 25 August 07 11:03 BST (UK) »
Does anybody know anything about the Associate Synod (the Burgher half of the Secession Church) in Selkirk, and specifically whether baptisms of dissenter families were recorded in the parish registers of the established church or wa there a separate register?

I know that Dr. George Lawson was the professor of divinity at the Divinity Hall (training college for ministers) in Selkirk from about 1782 till his death in 1820. The Statistical Accounts of Scotland for 1791-99 state, ‘There is in Selkirk, a meeting of Burgher Seceders, the only one in the country.’

The census of Selkirk conducted in 1817 recorded Dr. Lawson in Water Row with five others. They were presumably his wife and children, yet there are no baptisms in the OPRs.

Justin


It wasn't unkown for members of dissenting congregations to have an entry also made in the established church register, more so, in my experience, in the border counties compared to elsewhere.

See also the article in the August edition of the UK Your Family Tree.

It's near certain that this congregation kept their own register, but whether that has survived is a moot point.

Try a look at the LDS Catalogue, and also the on-line catalogue of the National Archives of Scotland, but just because there isn't an entry doesn't mean that the register hasn't survived, perhaps in private hands.

NAS have an ongoing project to list all such known register and kirk session material, established, secession, and non-conformist.  This will be part of their listing of all douments linked to a place, i.e. the main index will be by place, then will follow a listing of known material and its location.  Timescale is a year or three away.........

ibi

PS

A brief history of the presbyterian church in Scotland..........

And it is brief !!, - it takes a book to go into full detail.

Between the Reformation in 1559/60 and 1690 the control of the church changed hands on several occasions between the presbyterians and episcopalians

On the final and permanent restoration of presbyterianism in Scotland in 1690, the Episcopalians and the Cameronians (aka the Reformed Presbyterian Church - most of whom joined the Free Kirk in 1876) both chose to remain outside the Established Church of Scotland.

In 1733 the First Secession Church (aka "Associate Presbytery") broke away from the Established Church of Scotland.

In 1820 parts of subsequent schisms of the First Secession Church joined together as the United Secession Church ....... put that on one side for the moment

In 1761, the second major breakaway from the Established Church of Scotland was the Relief Church.

In 1847, the United Secession and Relief Churches came together to form the United Presbyterian Church, often referred to by the shorthand "UP".

Put that on one side for the moment

In 1843 there was the third major, and largest secession from the Established Church of Scotland resulting in the Free Church or Kirk of Scotland (properly and originally referred to as the Free Protesting Church of Scotland).

In 1900 the Free Church, except for the Free Presbyterians who'd broken away in 1892, and approx 150 Highland congregations whose chose to remain outside, united with the United Presbyterian Church to form the United Free Church.

In 1929 the United Free Church, all but those who remained outside as the United Free Continuing Church, rejoined the "Auld Kirk", i.e. the Established Church of Scotland

The SP OPR index is essentially an index of the Established Church records only.

The IGI contains a number of non-established church records, where LDS have been given access to the records.

For the sake of completeness, of the other two major schisms from the First Secession Church, one - the Burghers Auld Lichts rejoined the Auld Kirk in 1839, and most of the others - the Anti-Burgher Auld Lichts - joined the Free Kirk in 1852, with remainder continuing as the Original Secession Church, - there were approx 3,000 members in 1960.

There were also many, many other small secessions where a congregation or part thereof differed on a point of interpretation to the point where they went off and started their own congregation, sometimes linked to another secession church, but sometimes not.

The whole situation is also littered with a succession of "bear traps" in the sense of the day-to-day name used for a particular congregation differing from its full, formal name, e.g. "The Lifters" who had several congregations in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, -

See http://website.lineone.net/~davghalgh/churchhistory.html for a chart of the above, with due acknowedgement to this website.

ibi


Offline ibi

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Re: Selkirk Dissenters / the Associate Synod / Dr. George Lawson
« Reply #13 on: Saturday 25 August 07 11:38 BST (UK) »
A bit more about the Lifters...........

This relating to Kilmaurs "...dissension arose in the congregation about what seemed to them a matter of great importance, namely, whether the communion elements should be taken up by the presiding minister, before what is called the consecration prayer. They were divided into two parties denominated the lifters and the non-lifters; the latter contending that the elements should not be taken up in the hands of the minister, till he was about to distribute the bread and the wine set apart by prayer. The contention was so sharp, that Mr Smytane (the minister) renounced his connection with the Synod." There was also a Lifters congregation in Dalry.

And this from a couple of local histories.

"The Secessionists were those who had split in the 18th century from the established Presbyterian church. David Smyton or Smeaton had been 'called' to Kilmaurs, however he developed the belief that in the dispensation of the Sacrament, it was essential that the bread must be first lifted before being blessed. Such a small point was not taken very seriously by Smeaton and he fought hard for in his view Divine Authority would accept no latitude in this matter. The Weston Tavern was formetly Smyton's manse, built in 1740, however it was disposed of in 1789 upon his death. The 'Non-lifter' congregation built a meeting house and manse at Holland Green on the Fenwick Road. Tradition has it that Smyton forgot to 'lift the bread' at his first service following his victory in maintaining the possession of the Secession church in Kilmaurs. Robert Burns must have heard him preach and commented in a letter to Margaret Chalmers in 1787 that "The whining cant of love, except in real passion, and by a masterly hand, is to me as insufferable as the preaching cant of Old Smeaton, Whig minister at Kilmaurs."


ibi



Offline JAP

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Re: Selkirk Dissenters / the Associate Synod / Dr. George Lawson
« Reply #14 on: Saturday 25 August 07 17:02 BST (UK) »
...  See http://website.lineone.net/~davghalgh/churchhistory.html for a chart of the above ... 

This reference has already been given - see response #4 dated 7 August.

Offline alan14578

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Re: Selkirk Dissenters / the Associate Synod / Dr. George Lawson
« Reply #15 on: Wednesday 18 June 08 20:58 BST (UK) »
All the Dr LAWSON familes and Moirs are buried in the Auld Kirkyard Selkirk which I transcribed last year. It is now on CD with photographs of each headstone  and available from www.bordersfhs.org.uk for £10 plus p and p.
This burial ground is also the place where all the Murrays of Philiphaugh and Falahill have an ailse outlining their family history from AD 1280 to 1939 on various plaques.
It also includes the Murrays who were the maternal parents of Franklin d Rosseveldt .
One particular headstone is "To the memory of John Murray .He suffered great persecution for his opposition to episcopacy and to his strong attachments to the covenanting cause.He was a gentleman of singular piety and was chased from his house and heritage by the --- --oppression had all his goods driven to ye Mercat Cross and there sold."!!
   We look after them north of the border!!    alan
turnbull- Scottish Borders ,Caithness and East Lothian
waddell-roxburghshire
foord/ford -perthshire and borders
crosbie-scot borders
galloway-scot borders

Offline aricandec

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Re: Selkirk Dissenters / the Associate Synod / Dr. George Lawson
« Reply #16 on: Sunday 23 August 09 23:20 BST (UK) »
All this talk of Dissenters may explain why I can't find the marriage of Andrew Haddon and Christian Ruecastle which should have happened at the end of 1771 (she dumped a Hawick man after the banns were called in Sepr.1771) and went off and presumably married as the subsequent children (1772 onward) were to the lawfully wedded...! and born in Selkirk, Edinburgh and Paisley.
Enid
Brown - Galashiels; Cochrane - Galashiels and Kelso; Haddon - Selkirk and Peebles; Goodfellow, Laing, Scott, White - Hawick; Saunders - Plymouth and London; Hingston, Lindon, Sedgwick - Devon; Cruickshank,  Scott - Moray; Bruce - Alford, Aberdeenshire; Murray - Edinburgh, Lasswade; Alexander - Falkirk and Northumberland; Snowdon - Rothbury and Co.Durham; Hall - Northumberland and Co.Durham; Cook - Co.Durham; Hobson and Falshaw - Leeds and North Yorkshire;

Offline ibi

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Re: Selkirk Dissenters / the Associate Synod / Dr. George Lawson
« Reply #17 on: Wednesday 26 August 09 14:37 BST (UK) »
All this talk of Dissenters may explain why I can't find the marriage of Andrew Haddon and Christian Ruecastle which should have happened at the end of 1771 (she dumped a Hawick man after the banns were called in Sepr.1771) and went off and presumably married as the subsequent children (1772 onward) were to the lawfully wedded...! and born in Selkirk, Edinburgh and Paisley.
Enid

Enid

While it's certainly possible that your ancestor was a dissenter it's also possible that the record just hasn't survived.

Have a look at the OPR section on www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk .  Go into the Help section and you will find a listing of the dates for which Established CoS records exist for the parishes of interest.

ibi