Hi Monica I have finally received the police records for david mckenzie from lothian and borders police unfortunately they only contain a physical description his police number his warrant number when he joined and when he was stationed no other information. seeing as i can find nothing on scotlandspeople after 1871 census or indeed death certificates for either david or sarah would this perhaps indicate that they may have left the country and if so could you give me any pointers on how I would go about checking this out
Alex
for what it is worth, there was a history of police officers going from Scottish police forces to Colonial ones: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa to name but a few. Sorry but I have no clue how you could follow that up. In those days, there was nothing so simple as a "transfer" between forces, and some Chief constables got rather upset if they found out that an officer was planning to leave to go to another force, so that fact was not always made known when the cop left the force. Undoubtedly though, had he gone to another force, there would have been some record of it, since the "new" force would likely seek a certificate of confirmation as to the officer's length of service and conduct. Having said that, some Forces did issue certificates automatically in lieu of a reference.
Best regards
Dave
