Alexander Mckenzie & Ann Greig abt 1780 - stuck

[MonicaL]

Can I take it as a given that you have seen the original 1841 census and that there is no ambiguity with regard to Alexander McKenzie's age.

Freecen also show Alexander Snr as being 93. Address is given as East Colt Hills.

Monica

[jennywren001]

Hi Monica,
FindMyPast also 93 so probably spot on...both of the Charles McKenzies born Guthrie live past 1855 so I'm hoping Scott has viewed both death certificates.
Jen

[jennywren001]

Sorry, "Have ruled out the James McKenzie who married Ann Esplen - he was from Kirrie..." no I've not as on the 1871 census his man now lists Guthrie as his place of birth! By 1871 he has moved to Cupar in Fife and become a potato merchant. From the census he looks to have been born around 1807. Now if this man turns out to be the son of Alexander and Ann Greig that would point to the 93 year old being the father-in-law rather than the husband as it's very unlikely he'd name two sons James given one had already reached adulthood.

On the other hand at the bottom of the OPR for the birth of Ann McKinzie in 1822 someone has written (or rather added at a later date)...'For the rest of Alex McKinzie's family by Ann Greig see next page'. When I first read that I thought it implied he'd had another family by some else but maybe not.

Jen

[McTeacher]

Hi Jen,

Thank you again for your help. It's much appreciated.

So I have a John born to Alex and Ann in 1807 and complete records of all children's baptisms (in order Alexander (1803), Isobel (1804), John (1807), William (1811), Charles (1812), Robert (1819) and Ann (1822), )so as certain as I can be that no James here. The "next" page was a baptism list of all their children (I have a copy). I was told it was either done for civil registration purposes or because of the church to which they they might've been members.

I wouldn't rule out that the Alex of Alex and Mary being the father of Alex of Alex and Ann.

I guess you are beginning to see why I have been so bogged down over the years on this main branch. When the "weeds" get too thick, I switch to another branch for sanity :-)

The multiple Charles McKenzies from Guthrie area was an interesting curve too. I  don't think I ever found mine (married to Jane Tyrie) for that year. He seemed to live much of his adult life on Dundee Loan in Forfar (our known family home).

Have a good day - sunny here in Montreal.

[jennywren001]

Thunderstorms so I'm stuck indoors. Don't think I've been much help at all really as I'm not sure we're any further forward. James McKenzie (the potato merchant who claims to have been born Guthrie) was son to a James McKenzie (shoemaker) and an Ann Kinnear he died in 1887 aged 81. Spookily, he died in Dundee on Gellatly Street home to my Fullertons  Well, at least he doesn't add a second James into the mix!
Jen

PS have you read the Statistical Accounts for Guthrie I think it must have been one of the least populated parishes in NE Scotland.

It's got a bonny wee church built to a Thomas Telford design in 1826. I'm about to do exactly as the stained glass window depicts although with less ambitious outcomes - winter cabbage, chard and celtuce.
http://www.scottishchurches.org.uk/sites/site/id/7856/name/Guthrie+Parish+Church+Guthrie+Tayside

[McTeacher]

My wish list

- to have a look at the cemetery records for Ann's plot for an Alex. I know her plot info but would like to see who else is there. I bought some info from Deceasedonline concerning Charles McKenzie burial info (Newmonthill, A/278/1 - Dec 28, 1900 - dod Dec 25th) and it looks like I might've found another child. A toddler "Cath" McKenzie was also buried in A/278 - Dec 9, 1853. But 278 might be a big area for an extended family. Will keep hunting. :-)

- to establish if they followed an offshoot to the main religion and that's the reason for baptisms being all on one OPR page after Ann's baptism in 1822.(I've been told it might've been a money issue and a record cleanup issue). I saw this interesting chart. http://website.lineone.net/~davghalgh/churchhistory.html.

I know in the mid 1800s, close branches were members of the Free Church. 
 
Btw, lovely interior to the church (except the colour of the carpet :-) )

Hope everyone has a nice day. Sunny/warm again here in MTL.

[Forfarian]

My wish list
- to have a look at the cemetery records for Ann's plot for an Alex. I know her plot info but would like to see who else is there.

The burials in Forfar Cemetery are on www.deceasedonline.com. However in the case of Newmonthill Cemetery, Forfar aka Forfar Cemetery I do not know how to search using the lair number rather than the name of the person buried. If I were you I would contact Angus Council, tell them that you have obtained information from www.deceasedonline,com and ask them who else is in the same lair or block of lairs.

Before you do so, however, consider that Forfar Cemetery opened about 1850. So anyone who died before then will not be buried there. Specifically, someone aged 93 and living in Guthrie in 1841, and not found in the 1851 census, is not likely to be in Newmonthill. He will almost certainly be in the parish kirkyard in Guthrie. I do not know whether the Guthrie parish register records burials or not. If not, and there is nothing in the mortcloth listings in the Guthrie Kirk Session records, then you will have to accept that no record of the death of Alexander McKenzie before 1855 exists. 

(I have checked the book of pre-1855 monumental inscriptions and the only recorded McKenzie is Elizabeth McKenzie, the wife of George Ritchie. She died in 1866 aged 72, so there will be a death certificate if you want to see who her parents were.)

- to establish if they followed an offshoot to the main religion and that's the reason for baptisms being all on one OPR page after Ann's baptism in 1822.

The usual reason for a family being recorded batch-wise in the register of baptisms is that the parents neglected to have the baptisms recorded at the time. Occasionally the parents omitted to have the children baptised at all until the minister caught up with them and got them done as a job lot. The original document usually makes this clear.

The Statistical Account of Scotland (1792) says of the parish of Guthrie, "The people .... a few excepted, all belong to the Established Church." The New Statistical Account (1834-5) says, "With the exception of twelve persons, the whole population of the parish belongs to the Established Church". It also says that the parochial registers "extend back to the beginning of the seventeenth century; but there are many gaps in the records, and nothing like a continued narrative of parochial matter from the above date to the present. The portions that do exist, especially those towards the beginning, are very explicit and full, and, in many cases, very quaint and interesting".

I know in the mid 1800s, close branches were members of the Free Church. 

As the Free Church was not founded until May 1843, it isn't relevant to anything before 1843, except that if your people went with the Free Church, they were almost certainly members of the Church of Scotland ('established church') before the Disruption in 1843.

Hope everyone has a nice day. Sunny/warm again here in MTL.

Lucky you. It's been raining steadily here since Tuesday and shows no sign of drying up.

[jennywren001]

At the bottom of the OPR containing the list of McKenzie births (I can see no reference to any baptisms of the McKenzie children except for Ann born 1822) there is a mention made of some 'Acts' but I'm struggling to make out what is says.  The records on this page (12 in total) have been extracted from the Register.

Similar to the McKenzies, there's a couple at the top of the page who had a child baptised in 1820 which is recorded as such then there's a list of their other children but no indication that they were ever baptised - they have even included one child who was registered outside of Guthrie in Rescobie.

Jen

[Forfarian]

Acts 17 and 18 Vict(oria) Cap 80 and 23 and 24 Vict(oria) cap 85. This means that they were the 80th act passed by parliament in the parliamentary session that started in the 17th year of the reign of Queen Victoria and ended in the 18th year of her reign, and the 85th act passed in the session that started in the 23rd and ended in the 24th year of her reign.

The first is probably the Act of Parliament that established statutory civil registration, and also authorised the Registrar General for Scotland to collect all the surviving registers of the Church of Scotland when statutory civil registration started.

As an aside, I have noted that most parish registers are split into different volumes, and that in particular every parish seems to have started a new register in 1820.

So this is what I think happened.

Alexander and Ann had several children between 1803 and 1819, and got them baptised, but didn't bother, for whatever reason, to have the baptisms recorded in the parish register. Maybe they didn't want to pay the fee, or maybe they forgot, or maybe they didn't see the need, or any of 101 reasons we will never know.

When it came to baptising Ann in 1822, maybe there was a new minister, or maybe a new Session Clerk, and one or other of them asked why the older children's baptisms weren't in the old register. So at that point, all the births were listed in the new register, but no-one could remember the exact dates of all the baptisms so they just listed the dates of birth.

At a later date, when preparing the registers to be sent off to the Registrar General, the Session Clerk realised that all the earlier baptisms should have been in the old book, so he copied the information out of the new, post-1820 book into the old, pre-1819 book.

I've just realised that the signature reads W P Dundas, Registrar General. So the correction, i.e. copying the pre-1819 entries into the pre-1819 book, must have been done by the staff of the Registrar General in or after 1861, which was the 24th year of the reign of Queen Victoria.

Does that sound reasonable?