Some Perthshire Cemeteries

[rupiezucki]

Well, Forfarian, a mixed day for me.

Armed with your information, I drove to my nearest FHL.  We used to have one near where I live, but it closed, I think, due to lack of interest.  SOME of the films and fiches were sent to the next nearest one, and some were just returned to Salt Lake.  I could weep.

There were 2 computers available to access one's own account.  They were both in use when I got there, and there was another fellow waiting.  I went into the film and fiche room.  Most drawers were unlabeled, and it was obvious that the room was a multi purpose room.  Both rooms were small and had precious little table space.  The people were lovely, but ... they were doing the best they could.  The facility is open for 3 hours, once per week.

I never found the census films, they were labelled only by number, with no 'key', and the fiche reader had no magnification.  The attitude was a common one these days - that computers make films and fiches redundant.

It was so disappointing - BUT, when I finally got onto a computer, I was able to view 1841, 1851 was dodgy.  Anything later just refused to load.  The census images all came from FindmyPast. 

I was forearmed with your information, so I was able to get more done than I thought I would, although I never find 1851 Methven - only parishes beginning with "A" would load and Perth city.

So,  given that Ancestry is probably never going to have the census images, I think the wisest thing is to just bite the bullet - get a membership to FindMyPast and set up an account with Scotland's People.  Anything else will just be unrealistic and frustrating.

Although, a trip to Scotland would be most fruitful.   

Any suggestions on which level of FindMyPast membership I should get given that I have an ancestry membership already?

I appreciate the advice you have given me thus far.

Thanks for it!

[Forfarian]

That's a very interesting account of your encounter with the FHL. And a bit dispiriting.

I don't subscribe to Ancestry because all my ancestors are Scottish and Ancestry holds relatively little original material about Scottish births, marriages, deaths and census.

I don't recall what grade of subscription I have to FindMyPast, but I chose the one that gives me access to the newspapers and periodicals. This subscription gives me access to transcriptions of the census from 1841 to 1901. These are handy for looking to see where people were, because they contain more information than the index at SP. However they are not very good transcriptions, so I need to plan to check every one against the original. Some of the information on the originals is not included, or is only included if you scroll down each original person's listing. Some of the alleged information is geographically plain wrong. Also they commit what (to me) is the cardinal sin, of introducing information which is not in the originals in the form of (mis)calculated dates of birth. Do not join FindMyPast in the expectation of seeing original images of the censuses of Scotland. They do have original images of the England and Wales census.

[rupiezucki]

Thanks again!  I've been 'doing' genealogy for 30 years, got into ancestry about 20 years ago and they've been promising Scottish records since then.  So, I have been essentially avoiding my Scottish line all this time - just what I could glean from the IGIs - and I quickly learned about 'user-submitted' data.

I don't know if I mentioned, but I used to volunteer as a transcriptionist for FreeBMD many years ago.  THEY had standards.  It didn't matter what you knew personally, if you could not read the information you transcribed it as unknown, or an either/or.  None of the rubbish transcription errors that you see from PAID STAFF at ancestry.

Add to all this the fact that the group I am working on now came from the Barony of Tullybeagles, which was technically Methven (detached), but the churching was done in Auchtergaven. Then add on the non-standard spellings, combined with illiteracy.  Well, it's a challenge.

Good for the old grey matter, I suppose.

Something you might find interesting... while I was researching my Irish line (Ulster Scots), my daughter moved to Europe and spent a few years in Ireland.  I had been at solid brick walls and assumed that I had everything that had not been destroyed, so when I went over to visit, I didn't bring any material with me.  Just for a lark, I used her computer and started repeating old Google searches that I knew from memory.- searches I was running every couple of months and getting nothing new.  All of a sudden, just doing the search from inside Ireland, the returns were entirely different!  I was getting hits upon hits ... and none of my files with me to tie it into, or confirm that it was really mine.

Fortunately, several kind souls on the Tyrone board were able to help me, although they must have thought I was quite batty, as I had huge holes in my info - because it was back in Canada!  But with the little I was able to cobble together from memory, and the new search returns, the Rootschat family had several walls broken.

Needless to say, the next visit, I came prepared - usb sticks full of files.  I borrowed a laptop and off to the records office in Belfast.  I was there all day and it wasn't nearly enough for me. 

So, my cunning plan is a grand tour... records offices - Ireland, England and Scotland.

Thank you again for all of your help!

BTW - to keep this on topic - any idea where burials would be done for Gibbiestoun, Balwherne, Meikle Obney (the Methven detached villages)  if they weren't in the Bankfoot cemetery or Logiebride?  I have the books from both and am still missing several burials.  Thanks.

[Forfarian]

Sorry, I don't know - even though my uncle's wife was from Obney. (Strictly, my father's cousin's wife, but we thought of them as our uncle and aunt.)

Yes, I did some transcribing for FreeBMD too - about 10,000 I think. As you say, very high standards.

Anne

[bleckie]

Hi Rupiezucki

I did a quick check on scotlandspeople for the surname "Paton" and got the following results:
Marriages Auchtergaven 52
               Methven          9
   All Perthshire           579

Deaths/Burrials      Auchtergaven   NONE.
                            Methven           NONE
all Perthshire          1736-1854           84

This is only from the church of Scotland OPRs you have other churches with are now on Scotlandspeople. and only the spelling as above you have Patton and Panton spelling is a relatively new phenomenon names were usually phonetic.

Yours Aye
BruceL

[rupiezucki]

Deaths/Burrials      Auchtergaven   NONE.
                            Methven           NONE
all Perthshire          1736-1854           84

This is only from the church of Scotland OPRs you have other churches with are now on Scotlandspeople. and only the spelling as above you have Patton and Panton spelling is a relatively new phenomenon names were usually phonetic.

Yours Aye
BruceL

Thank, Bruce ...

Even given alternate spellings, there are still a LOT of people who don't seem to show up in cemeteries.  I know that in parts of the US, family burial plots on the family property are more common than you would think - did Scots do this as well?  Would it have been common?  What about after battles?  Would mass graves have been common? 

If we can find Richard III in a car park ... 

Enquiring minds want to know! 

Cheers,
Rupie.

[Forfarian]

I know that in parts of the US, family burial plots on the family property are more common than you would think - did Scots do this as well?  Would it have been common?

No. Most Scots families did not own enough land to have their own private burial grounds. Pretty much everyone was buried in a kirkyard. Even some big landowning families, rather than have their own burial ground, would build an aisle or mausoleum in the kirkyard.

I have read that is estimated that only 10% of people had a gravestone, but I am not sure what period that refers to. The proportion surviving from say the 17th century must be far smaller than that.

The thing is that the kirk was interested in baptising and marrying people, but death was the start of the afterlife and not an event of earthly significance. So deaths were seldom recorded as such.

There are three types of record that may contain death information before 1855.

One is gravestones.

The second is burial records, if they were kept and if they have survived.

The third is mortcloth records. A mortcloth is a large cloth that was used to cover the coffin during the funeral service, and the relatives had to pay for the use of it, the money going into the parish's poor funds. The mortcloth fees are often recorded in the parish accounts or in the kirk session records, sometimes even including the name of the deceased. The surviving kirk session records have been digitised, but they are not (yet) available online, and have to be consulted at the National Records of Edinburgh or a small number of local archives around Scotland. Nor are they indexed so it can be a long job ploughing through them looking for one particular fact.

[rupiezucki]

The third is mortcloth records. A mortcloth is a large cloth that was used to cover the coffin during the funeral service, and the relatives had to pay for the use of it, the money going into the parish's poor funds. The mortcloth fees are often recorded in the parish accounts or in the kirk session records, sometimes even including the name of the deceased. The surviving kirk session records have been digitised, but they are not (yet) available online, and have to be consulted at the National Records of Edinburgh or a small number of local archives around Scotland. Nor are they indexed so it can be a long job ploughing through them looking for one particular fact.

Thanks, again!

Edinburgh it is, then.  Ah, well.

 

Cheers!

[Forfarian]

I should also have mentioned a fourth source: that deaths are sometimes announced in newspapers.