I have found this info at Gartshore Family Surnames -pafg191-Generated by Personal Ancestry File (Page 1) "Matthew Smellie was born abt. 1695 in Medrox, New Monkland, Lanark, Scotland."
Rule No 1. Never believe anything you find on the internet. Use it as a guide to finding the original documents, and check them carefully.
Unfortunately, in part of the FamilySearch files, the LDS seem to have adopted a policy of assuming that a male was aged 25 and a female 21 on the date of their marriage or, if there was no other evidence for it, on the date of baptism of the first child. This has resulted in a plethora of guessed dates in the index, most of which dates can be disregarded. ANY date which is prefixed by 'abt' is a guess, and not to be relied on.
They also assume that people were born in the same place as their children, which isn't necessarily the case. An index entry which describes a person as 'of' somewhere is almost invariably a guess.
This is especially misleading in Scotland, because if you find an original document describing someone as '
of xxxx' this is a specific indication that the person
owned xxxx. People who did not own the place where they lived are usually described as '
in xxxx' and people who were only temporarily there as '
at xxxx'. It's not 100% reliable, but it's more reliable than the LDS' guesswork.
Don't misunderstand me - FamilySearch is a fantastic tool, and an unparalleled finding aid, and I am more than grateful to the LDS for producing it and making it freely available. However it does have its quirks and limitations, and you need to be aware of these, and of the possible pitfalls.
